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Tip of the week: System changes can help your program meet duty-hour requirements

Residency Program Connection, January 15, 2008

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It is no secret that meeting resident work-hour requirements is difficult for many programs, but modifying your systems may make adhering to those requirements a little easier. There are several creative strategies for trimming hours, including the following:

• Reorganize the workday by employing hospitalists, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. 
• Stagger the times these helpers come in-not everyone needs to start and end the day at the same time.
• Utilize other team members, like social workers, to make patient care more efficient. Letting these strategic partners do their jobs may improve patient care quality while reducing the amount of work a resident has to do on some patient cases. That means residents can move on to another patient more quickly.

Lastly, look at how patient care settings that do not employ residents handle their work load. You may be able to emulate one of their solutions in your own facility.

More information about helpful system changes can be found in Insider's Guide to ACGME Site Visit, Second Edition, by Kathryn Andolsek, MD, MPH, and Shepard Cohen, available here.

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