Researchers observed 80 interns at U.S. internal medicine residency programs and randomly assigned them to either standard duty-hour policies of the 2011 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or flexible policies that didn't specify limits on shift length or mandate time off between shifts.
The findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Here are 12 statistics on the mean percentage of observed shift time spent on various activities. Researchers observed 44 interns in flexible programs and 36 in standard programs.
Direct patient care (including evaluation and in-person communication with patients or their families):
1. Flexible programs: 13 percent
2. Standard programs: 11.8 percent
Education (being taught, attending educational conferences, reading about medicine:
3. Flexible programs: 7.3 percent
4. Standard programs: 7.3 percent
Indirect patient care (interacting with the electronic chart, viewing imaging, attending rounds not directly involving the patient, discussing care with consultant):
5. Flexible programs: 67.9 percent
6. Standard programs: 63.7 percent
Handoffs:
7. Flexible programs: 2.7 percent
8. Standard programs: 4 percent
Rounds:
9. Flexible programs: 22.4 percent
10. Standard programs: 19 percent
Miscellaneous (including eating and sleeping):
11. Flexible programs: 5.6 percent
12. Standard programs: 9.7 percent