Resident work hours on the line - Orlando Business Journal:

http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Discussion-on-Some-Facts-of-Vinyl-Siding&id=5724147
billion annually and threaten patiengt care. , which is responsibled for evaluating andaccrediting post-MDc medical training programs in the is reviewing whether the current limit on how much residentz are allowed to work – 80 hours per week is appropriate. The Institute of Medicine, a nonprofir that conducts researchon “matteres of biomedical science, medicine, and has suggested that the 80-hour limit be maintained but that residents be allowed to work no longer than 16 hours per shift before beint given time to sleep.
The IOM also suggestsw that residents get five full days offper month, up from Residents could work only four nights a week and woulrd be due 48 consecutive hours off if they work three or four straight days. Based on the IOM a study published in the May 21 edition of The concludedf thatthe 8,500 teaching hospitals in the nation woulsd have to pony up $1.6 billioh to hire people to replace the residents. In Nortn Carolina, residents start out earning abour $46,000 a year and get raises of about $1,000 for each year as a Officials at Triangle medical schools are opposed to changingb thecurrent limit. Dr.
Deannaz Sasaki-Adams, chief resident of neurosurgeryat , says furthef capping of resident hours would interfere with her ability to schedule residents. She also believexs the change would be bad for patientg care because patients more often would be handecd off from one residentto another. That, she could increase the chances for medical error orsubparf care. “It’s good to ensure you’re not some sort of a but we also don’t want to be shift workers. We want to be doctors,” she says. Says Dr. Nell a first-year obstetrics resident at UNC “I can’t see learning what you need to learhn and doing what you need to do in less than 80 a week. Dr.
Jennifer Orning, a second-yeard neurosurgery resident at UNC, agrees. She says she alreadyh spends a significant amount of time outside her 80 hours fillintg out forms to let the next resident know abou the patients she has beencariny for. The IOM plan would requir moreof that, she “It would just increase the room for The limits that are in place on residenft work hours are relatively new. The accreditation council imposesdthe 80-hour cap in 2003 to balancd resident education and well-being with patient says Julie Jacob, a spokeswoman for the accreditation That decision came with a plan to revieaw it after five years, which the council is now doing.
Whatever new standared is selected is expected to be implementefin mid-2010. The issud is a controversial one, with money at the hearft of it. Dr. Brian Goldstein, chief of staff for UNC says he is afraid to guess how many peoples the hospital would need to hire to adjust to a reductiob inresident hours. “It would put additional financial strainson hospitals,” he UNC has about 750 residents, most of them at UNC Hospitalsz and . spends more than $70 million a year to covet costs related to the 900 resident atits hospital. Very little of that says Dr.
Michael Cuffe, vice president for medical comes from Medicareor grants, meanint that the hospital has to fund the residentds from its operations. Jacob says issues such as hospital costs will not be a factor inthe council’s decision to set maximukm hours worked. Dr. Suzanne Kraemer, residency progran director at , says no studies have clearlg shown that reducing resident work hourws results in improvedpatientg outcomes. Rather, there is greater potential for harm as patient are passed from one doctor to she says. At the same while there is a limit onresidentr hours, board-certified doctors are free to work as many hoursx as they like.
Sasaki-Adams says she is concernef that resident work limits could be expandedfto doctors. Given the national shortage of physicians, such limits coul d prove detrimental tothe health-care industry.