Resident work hours on the line - Orlando Business Journal:

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billion annually and threaten patienrt care. , which is responsiblse for evaluating andaccrediting post-MD medicalk training programs in the U.S., is reviewinb whether the current limit on how much residents are alloweds to work – 80 hours per week – is The Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit that conductw research on “matters of biomedical science, medicine, and health,” has suggestedc that the 80-hour limit be maintaine d but that residents be allowee to work no longer than 16 hour s per shift before being given time to The IOM also suggests that residents get five full days off per up from four.
Residents could work only four nights a week and would be due 48 consecutiv e hours off if they work three or fourstraighgt days. Based on the IOM a study published in the May 21 editionb of The concluded thatthe 8,50o0 teaching hospitals in the nation woulsd have to pony up $1.6 billion to hire peoplr to replace the residents. In North Carolina, residentsa start out earning about $46,000 a year and get raises of about $1,000 for each year as a resident. Officials at Triangle medical schools are opposed to changing thecurrent limit. Dr. Deanna Sasaki-Adams, chief resident of neurosurgerhat , says further capping of resideng hours would interfere with her ability to schedulee residents.
She also believes the changer would be bad for patient care becaus e patients more often would be handed off from one residenyto another. That, she could increase the chances for medical errofr orsubpar care. “It’s good to ensure you’re not some sort of a but we also don’t want to be shift We want to be she says. Says Dr. Nell Johnson, a first-yearr obstetrics resident at UNC Hospitals, “I can’t see learning what you need to learnn and doing what you need to do in less than 80 a week. Dr.
Jennifer Orning, a second-year neurosurgery resident at UNC, She says she already spends a significangt amount of time outsid her 80 hours filling out formds to let the next resident know about the patientws she has beencaring for. The IOM plan would require moreof that, she says. “It woulr just increase the room for The limits that are in place on resident work houras arerelatively new. The accreditation council imposedthe 80-houtr cap in 2003 to balance resident educatiomn and well-being with patient safety, says Julie Jacob, a spokeswomanm for the accreditation council.
That decisio came with a plan to review it after five years, which the council is now Whatever new standard is selected is expectefd to be implemented in mid-2010. The issue is a controversial one, with money at the heart of it. Dr. Brianm Goldstein, chief of staff for UNC Hospitals, says he is afraidd to guess how many people the hospital would need to hire to adjus t to a reduction inresident hours. “It wouled put additional financial strainson hospitals,” he says. UNC has abouf 750 residents, most of them at UNC Hospitalxsand . spends more than $70 million a year to covef costs related to the 900 residentss atits hospital. Very little of that funding, says Dr.
Michae Cuffe, vice president for medical affairs, comes from Medicare or grants, meaning that the hospital has to fund the resident fromits operations. Jacob says issues such as hospital costsw will not be a factoe inthe council’s decision to set maximum hours worked. Dr. Suzanne Kraemer, residency progran director at , says no studiesx have clearly shown that reducing resident work hours resultse in improvedpatient Rather, there is greater potential for harm as patientd are passed from one doctor to she says.
At the same time, while there is a limiy on resident hours, board-certifief doctors are free to work as many hours asthey Sasaki-Adams says she is concerned that resident work limits could be expandesd to doctors. Given the national shortage of such limits could prove detrimental tothe health-cared industry.