Work Hour Reductions, Medical Errors, and Intern Well-Being at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center Intensive Care Unit

Providence Health & Services

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depression; Sleep Deprivation

Treatments: Other: Reduced work hour schedule

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00996320

IRB 08-74B

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether reducing intern work hours and eliminating extended shifts in the intensive care unit will reduce prescribing errors and improve intern well-being.

Full description

Each intern enrolled will complete three 4-week rotations in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Each intern will complete at least one traditional schedule and one intervention schedule. The traditional schedule consists of an 80-hour work week with overnight call every third night. The longest shift on the traditional schedule is 30 hours. The intervention schedule consists of a 60-hour work week which eliminates overnight call by assigning a variety of shifts ranging from 8 to 16 hours in length.

Enrollment: 22 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Interns rotating at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center ICU

Exclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of narcolepsy

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

---

22 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Schedule

Experimental group

Description:

Interns on the intervention schedule work the a modified ICU schedule averaging about 60 hours per week over 4 weeks, with maximum scheduled shift length 16 hours.

Treatment:

Other: Reduced work hour schedule

Traditional Schedule

No Intervention group

Description:

Interns on the traditional schedule work the usual ICU schedule averaging about 80 hours per week over 4 weeks, with maximum shift length 30 hours.