• Christopher P Landrigan, Shadab A Rahman, Jason P Sullivan, Eric Vittinghoff, Laura K Barger, Amy L Sanderson, Kenneth P Wright, Conor S O'Brien, Salim Qadri, Melissa A St Hilaire, Ann C Halbower, Jeffrey L Segar, John K McGuire, Michael V Vitiello, Horacio O de la Iglesia, Sue E Poynter, Pearl L Yu, Phyllis C Zee, Steven W Lockley, Katie L Stone, Charles A Czeisler, and ROSTERS Study Group.
• From the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital (C.P.L., S.A.R., J.P.S., L.K.B., C.S.O., S.Q., M.A.S.H., S.W.L., C.A.C.), the Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School (C.P.L., S.A.R., L.K.B., M.A.S.H., S.W.L., C.A.C.), and the Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics (C.P.L.), and the Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine (A.L.S.), Boston Children's Hospital - all in Boston; the University of California, San Francisco (E.V., K.L.S.), and California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute (K.L.S.), San Francisco; the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder (K.P.W.), and Children's Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora (A.C.H.); the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital, Iowa City (J.L.S.); Seattle Children's Hospital (J.K.M.) and the University of Washington (M.V.V., H.O.I.), Seattle; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati (S.E.P.); University of Virginia Children's Hospital, Charlottesville (P.L.Y.); and the Department of Neurology and Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago (P.C.Z.).
• N. Engl. J. Med. 2020 Jun 25; 382 (26): 2514-2523.

BackgroundThe effects on patient safety of eliminating extended-duration work shifts for resident physicians remain controversial.MethodsWe conducted a multicenter, cluster-randomized, crossover trial comparing two schedules for pediatric resident physicians during their intensive care unit (ICU) rotations: extended-duration work schedules that included shifts of 24 hours or more (control schedules) and schedules that eliminated extended shifts and cycled resident physicians through day and night shifts of 16 hours or less (intervention schedules). The primary outcome was serious medical errors made by resident physicians, assessed by intensive surveillance, including direct observation and chart review.ResultsThe characteristics of ICU patients during the two work schedules were similar, but resident physician workload, described as the mean (±SD) number of ICU patients per resident physician, was higher during the intervention schedules than during the control schedules (8.8±2.8 vs. 6.7±2.2). Resident physicians made more serious errors during the intervention schedules than during the control schedules (97.1 vs. 79.0 per 1000 patient-days; relative risk, 1.53; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.37 to 1.72; P<0.001). The number of serious errors unitwide were likewise higher during the intervention schedules (181.3 vs. 131.5 per 1000 patient-days; relative risk, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.43 to 1.71). There was wide variability among sites, however; errors were lower during intervention schedules than during control schedules at one site, rates were similar during the two schedules at two sites, and rates were higher during intervention schedules than during control schedules at three sites. In a secondary analysis that was adjusted for the number of patients per resident physician as a potential confounder, intervention schedules were no longer associated with an increase in errors.ConclusionsContrary to our hypothesis, resident physicians who were randomly assigned to schedules that eliminated extended shifts made more serious errors than resident physicians assigned to schedules with extended shifts, although the effect varied by site. The number of ICU patients cared for by each resident physician was higher during schedules that eliminated extended shifts. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; ROSTERS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02134847.).Copyright © 2020 Massachusetts Medical Society.

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