Here are five things to know about the research.
• Changing the work hour restrictions have not had the desired effect of lowering postoperative complication rates in several surgical specialties.
• There was no significant difference in measured surgical patient outcomes between one year before and two years after the 2011 work hour reform went into effect.
• The researchers examined five surgical specialties, and after controlling for external factors that could influence surgical outcomes, found no significant association between the work reform and the number of 30-day patient deaths and serious postoperative complications in the two years that followed, or either year separately.
• Prior studies concluded that the 2011 work hour restriction did not affect patient outcomes for general surgical patients either.
• “Our finding suggests the ACGME reform is not meeting its goal of improved patient safety in surgery,” Ravi Rajaram, MD, lead investigator for the research, said in a statement. He concludes that additional work is needed to determine how to best structure resident hours to improve patient outcomes.
More articles on clinical quality:
100 Patient Safety Benchmarks | 2015
Physicians miss glaring signs of sepsis: 6 things to know
Readmissions for sepsis more common, costly than heart complications: 7 key study findings
