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FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) The ACGME’s Approach to Limit Resident Duty Hours 12 Months After Implementation: A Summary of Achievements Rationale for the Duty Hour Limits Changes in health care delivery, and concerns that restricted sleep has a negative effect on performance resulted in a need to limit resident duty hours. As the accrediting body for more than 7,900 residency programs, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education is the entity charged with setting and enforcing duty hour limits. In July 2003, ACGME instituted a comprehensive approach that includes: (1) standards for resident hours and institutional oversight; (2) promoting compliance; and (3) increasing knowledge on the effect of the standards and on innovative ways to conduct education and patient care under limited resident hours. ACGME considers duty hour limits an important element of its comprehensive approach to promote high-quality education and safe patient care. The Standards ACGME’s common duty hour standards acknowledge scientific evidence that long hours and sleep loss have a negative effect on resident performance, learning and well-being. The duty hour standards include: • An 80-hour weekly limit, averaged over four weeks; • An adequate rest period, which should consist of 10 hours of rest between duty periods; • A 24-hour limit on continuous duty, and up to six added hours for continuity of care and education; • One day in seven free from patient care and educational obligations, averaged over four weeks; • In-house call no more than once every three nights, averaged over four weeks; • The option for programs in some specialties to request an increase of up to 8 hours in the weekly hours, if this benefits resident education, with approval by their sponsoring institution and the Residency Review Committee (RRC) in the given specialty. ACGME chose 80-hours as the upper limit to safeguard against the negative effects of chronic sleep loss, and selected a limit of 24 hours plus up to six hours to address the effects of acute sleep loss, and to allow for adequate time for patient hand-off and didactic learning.1 1 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Report of the Work Group on Resident Duty Hours and the Learning Environment, June 11, 2002; (http://www.acgme.org, accessed July 16, 2004). FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) Achievements in the first 12 Months In the first 12 months after the July 2003 implementation, ACGME, the RRCs and the residency education community rose to the challenge of applying the duty hour standards to 7,973 accredited specialty and subspecialty programs. Programs and sponsoring institutions made changes in the clinical training of residents, their patient care activities and the mechanisms for duty hour monitoring and oversight. Many programs used schedule changes, night float and other rotation changes to bring duty hours below the common limits. Others replaced resident services with care by nurse practitioners, physician assistants or hospitalists. A few programs completely re-engineered their patient care and education system to function well under reduced hours. Virtually all programs increased the clinical responsibilities of faculty physicians. Highlights from the first year under the new standards include: • ACGME collected data on duty hour compliance from the program directors of all accredited programs, with more than 98% of ACGME-accredited programs responding by the March 2004 deadline. Senior officials at each sponsoring institution verified this information. • ACGME instituted systems to track compliance, including the number of programs cited for duty hour violations, complaints related to resident hours, and programs applying for duty hour exceptions. • During accreditation reviews conducted between July 2003 and June 2004, ACGME site visitors interviewed program directors, faculty, residents and sponsoring institution representatives and conducted primary reviews of documents that detail resident duty hours, including rotation schedules, call rosters and some institutional duty hour surveys to verify compliance with the standards. • Of the 2,235 programs reviewed during Academic Year 2003-04, 208 were applications for new programs. Of 2,027 existing programs that received full reviews, 101 programs (5.0%) received one or more citations related to non-compliance with the duty hour standards. The majority of citations related to compliance with the 80-hour weekly limit (52 citations), followed by the requirement for one day in seven free of program duties and the 24 + up to 6-hour limit on continuous duty (29 and 27 citations, respectively). RRCs requested that 42 programs provide them with dedicated reports that detail their efforts to bring duty hours into compliance or general progress reports that included information on duty hours. Detailed information on duty hour citations, including duty hour citations and time to next RRC review by specialty, is shown at Exhibit 1. • ACGME interviewed between 11,000 and 13,000 residents during scheduled accreditation site visits, and via an electronic resident survey collected data on duty hour compliance from 25,176 residents in 1,489 programs. Among the respondents, 834 residents (3.3% of the responding residents) in 370 programs (24.8% of responding programs) reported working more than 80 hours per week during the previous 4 weeks. That a small group of residents work beyond the duty hour limits likely relates to factors associated with individual residents’ learning and practice performance, rather than program level non-compliance with the standards. At the same time, the survey found a few programs where the majority of residents worked significantly beyond the duty hour limits. ACGME is following up with programs where the resident survey data suggests a potential program-level compliance problem. • ACGME received 53 complaints related to non-compliance related to resident hours. Eleven were dismissed as unfounded. For the remainder ACGME instituted appropriate follow-up activities, including its procedure for “Rapid Response to Alleged Egregious Accreditation Violations or Catastrophic Institutional Events” for the most serious complaints. Details are shown at Exhibit 2. FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) • • • • • • The RRCs approved 75 requests by individual programs to extend the weekly limit to 88 hours, and denied another 14 requests. Exhibit 3 shows requests by specialty. ACGME denied a request by the surgical RRCs to increase the weekly limit for the surgical chief resident year to 88 hours, due a lack of data thus far showing a negative effect of the limits, and ability of programs to request an increase in their weekly limit for chief residents to 88-hours, with the approval of their institution and RRC. Eleven RRCs have standards that are more restrictive than the common duty hour limits or do not permit programs to apply for the increase in the weekly duty hour limit, as shown at Exhibit 4. ACGME communicated its approach to limit resident duty hours and its compliance efforts to the academic community and the public through published articles, interviews and information presented on the ACGME Web site and in the quarterly ACGME Bulletin. In August 2003, ACGME communicated with approximately 100,000 residents in accredited programs through the officials at their sponsoring institution, informing them about the duty hour standards and compliance monitoring activities, including residents’ rights to raise concerns about violations of the standards with their institutions and, ultimately, ACGME. ACGME is sensitive to the issue that reporting alleged non-compliance with the standards may place such “whistleblowers” at risk for retaliation or retribution, and its confidential complaint management process and institutional requirements seek to safeguard these individuals. In addition, ACGME has emphasized to program directors and institutional leaders the need to protect “confidential reporters,” beginning with an article in the fall 2003 ACGME Bulletin. ACGME kept the academic community informed about compliance activities and “innovative ideas” for meeting the standards thorough articles in the ACGME Bulletin, question and answer sections on the ACGME Web site and presentations to the academic community. Successful approaches for reducing hours that preserve a balance between education and service could be adopted or adapted by other programs and institutions. A sampling of innovative ideas is presented at Exhibit 5. Potential Future Refinements to the Standards ACGME has solicited feedback on the elements of the standards that may reduce educational quality or have other unintended effects, with the goal of assessing the need for future refinements. It is aware that public attention is focused on the issue of resident hours and the mechanisms to ensure compliance and believes that a period of at least 12 to 18 months without changes to the standards is needed to give programs time to adapt education and patient care activities to the limits and to collect data on their effect. ACGME may make future refinements in areas where key indices suggest the standards may be problematic from an educational or patient care perspective. Revisions to the standards would be made only in response to convincing data that they are necessary and would benefit education and/or patient care, and after a process of soliciting broad input and support for any changes from the education community and the general public. FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) Neurology: Reducing Neurology Resident Hours at UT Medical Branch, Galveston In early 2003, this neurology program revised its resident scheduling patterns to conform to the ACGME duty hour limits. The program’s nine residents all take night call with no differences between senior and junior residents. Rotating residents do not participate in call. At the heart of the system is that each resident is scheduled for a two-week long “night float” rotation three times per year. The other residents are on a regular rotation with more limited call. No resident works more than 80 hours per week or 24 hours of continuous duty. The primary benefit is that residents no longer complain of being “post-call” and do not fall asleep in conferences. Residents and faculty consider the plan a success. Surgery: Models for Surgical Resident Education at Northwestern University, Chicago A think tank at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University developed four resident rotation models the surgery residency program currently uses. The goal was to develop models programs can adopt to comply with the standards while maintaining or enhancing resident education. In the Stretch Model, residents take call every fourth night (or less) and leave the next morning. This is the easiest approach to get to an 80-hour week, but it has no real educational advantages other than reducing duty hours, presumably giving residents more time to read. The Night Float Model consists of a traditional resident team system, except that a percentage of the program's residents are designated to a “night-float” shift, usually for a month at a time. Each resident rotates on night float two to three months per year. The day team has one hour of overlap with the night- float team to allow for a robust "sign-out." Teams working during the day would take no in-house night call. The "night float" team works a night shift six days per week, although larger programs may be able to accommodate a five nights per week schedule. The Apprentice Model involves one resident working exclusively with one or two faculty members over several months. Residents work side-by-side with their mentors in the operating room and outpatient setting and take home call when their mentor is on call, and participate only in the care of their mentors' patients. Faculty members are selected carefully based on dedication to education and an appropriate practice profile. This model lends itself well to subspecialty areas like colorectal or breast surgery, but also can be used for general surgery rotations. Apprentices take no in-house call, and are on duty less than 80 hours, even if they have to come in at night once or twice a week. In the Mastery (Case-Based) Model, cases are assigned to residents solely based on their learning needs. Knowledge and skills associated with diagnoses and operations are measured by personal progress, not by time. Proficiency is verified through formal assessment, and residents are allowed to advance to other areas and are not required to scrub on operations they have mastered unless they want to refresh their knowledge. Residents are responsible for making arrangements to review the cases with the appropriate attending. They round on their own patients in the morning and go to the clinic or operating room depending on their assignments for that week. They are not required to take night call, but could take call from home. Learning expectations are made clear at the start and are mastery-based, but broken down by year of training for planning purposes. Surgery: From more than 110 to less than 80 hours at St. Luke’s Hospital, Bethlehem After analyzing the responsibilities and tasks of its residents and the service requirements of their various clinical rotations, the leadership of this surgery program instituted a modified night float system. From Sunday through Thursday one resident is on a night-float rotation from 6 pm to 8 am and to 11 am for Friday morning conferences. Two different residents are on call Friday night, Saturday day and night, and Sunday during the day. The night-float resident changes weekly. Chief residents take call from home and come to the hospital when needed. FATIGUE Text Button I ACCREDITATION COUNCIL FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION (ACGME) (CONT’D) The modified night float system has advantages in a small surgery program: (1) residents miss few clinical opportunities; (2) residents are able to attend surgical clinics and attending faculty office hours; (3) residents can participate in time-protected conferences during the morning; (4) residents have more time for rest and personal learning; (5) the night float resident is still involved in operative procedures in that he/she participates in late elective surgical cases and is involved in emergency surgical cases at night. Making the modified night float system a success requires a commitment by the faculty, nursing and administration to make the residency primarily an educational experience. It also requires understanding on the part of residents and faculty that the ACGME duty hour standards improve the educational experience of residents. Finally, a robust sign-out of patients at the beginning and end of the night-float period is a key element of a successful night-float model.