Organizational interventions in response to duty hour reforms

Time course of recovery after two successive night shifts: A diary study among Austrian nurses

AIM

To explore how nurses recover from night shift work during periods off duty.

BACKGROUND

Given the large number of affected individuals globally, detrimental health outcomes of night shift work are an important public health issue. Sufficient recovery opportunities are essential to prevent prolonged fatigue associated with demanding tasks and high workload as experienced in nurses working long shifts during the night.

METHOD

Nurses (n = 53, 96% females) who worked in two public nursing homes in Austria completed a 5-day diary to collect data on well-being conceptualized by fatigue, distress and vigour.

RESULTS

Nurses experienced worse well-being post night shift days than during rest days. Well-being improved from post night shift day 2 to the following rest day 1 and continued improvement from rest day 1 to rest day 2.

CONCLUSIONS

Nurses who work at nights are at risk for experiencing prolonged fatigue. Our results suggest that after two consecutive 12-hr night shifts full recovery needs at least three days off work.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Strategies for maintaining nurses' good health and caring attitudes as well as vigilance for patient safety should include fatigue management plans and optimised schedules for night shift work.

Effects of modifications to the health and social sector's collective agreement on the objective characteristics of working hours

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of an intervention on objective working-hour characteristics. The intervention involved making modifications to the collective agreement that would limit employees' entitlement to time off as compensation. The intervention group consisted of 493 and the control group of 2,303 health and social care shift workers, respectively. We analysed the objective pay roll-based working-hour data for 2012-2013, which we obtained from employers' records, using the repeated measures mixed model. The changes in objective working-hour characteristics were small, but systematic. The intervention had some positive effects: the amount of short recovery periods (<28 h) after the last night shift decreased from 5% to 3%, and the amount of working weeks of over 48 h decreased from 19% to 17%. The realization of employees' shift preferences increased from 18% to 20%. However, in contrast, consecutive work shifts and the number of scheduled absences increased and days off decreased, suggesting less time for recovery and thus a negative trend in shift ergonomics. When planning shifts, nursing management should avoid regulations that promote specific unhealthy shift characteristics, that is, consecutive work shifts and less days off.

Entrustment of the on-call senior medical resident role: implications for patient safety and collective care

BACKGROUND

The on-call responsibilities of a senior medicine resident (SMR) may include the admission transition of patient care on medical teaching teams (MTT), supervision of junior trainees, and ensuring patient safety. In many institutions, there is no standardised assessment of SMR competency prior to granting these on-call responsibilities in internal medicine. In order to fulfill competency based medical education requirements, training programs need to develop assessment approaches to make and defend such entrustment decisions. The purpose of this study is to understand the clinical activities and outcomes of the on-call SMR role and provide training programs with a rigorous model for entrustment decisions for this role.

METHODS

This four phase study utilizes a constructivist grounded theory approach to collect and analyse the following data sets: case study, focus groups, literature synthesis of supervisory practices and return-of-findings focus groups. The study was conducted in two Academic Health Sciences Centres in Ontario, Canada. The case study included ten attending physicians, 13 SMRs, 19 first year residents and 14 medical students. The focus groups included 19 SMRs. The later, return-of-findings focus groups included ten SMRs.

RESULTS

Five core on-call supervisory tasks (overseeing ongoing patient care, briefing, case review, documentation and preparing for handover) were identified, as well as a range of practices associated with these tasks. We also identified challenges that influenced the extent to which SMRs were able to effectively perform the core tasks. At times, these challenges led to omissions of the core tasks and potentially compromised patient safety and the admission transition of care.

CONCLUSION

By identifying the core supervisory tasks and associated practices, we were able to identify the competencies for the on-call SMR role. Our findings can further be used by training programs for assessment and for making entrustment decisions.