Intensive Care Unit Resident Scheduling Trial

Overview

Many patients, doctors and others worry that tired doctors provide worse patient care, may not learn well and become burnt-out. In response to these concerns, some countries changed their laws to limit work-hours for doctors in training ('residents'). In Canada, most residents work six or seven 24-30h shifts each month. A recent Canadian report ordered by Health Canada said that making good decisions about resident work-hour rules was "significantly limited by quality evidence, especially evidence directly attributable to the Canadian context." Creating this evidence is the main goal of this research. The pilot study in 2 intensive care units(ICU) found that shorter shifts may be worse for patients, and for residents were more tiring than expected but improved wellbeing. Learning was not assessed. Previous studies on resident work-hours report similar findings: conflicting effects for patients, benefits for resident wellbeing, inconsistent and under-studied effects on learning. Overall, these results are not conclusive and confirm the need for a larger study. The current study will provide high-quality Canadian evidence. The investigators will compare two common ICU schedules used in Canada: resident shifts of 16h and 24h. ICU patients are very sick, there is little margin for error: they need doctors who know them well and are thinking clearly. The effects of each schedule on patients and residents will be measured. For patients, mortality rates and harm caused by care in ICU will be studied. For resident education, their learning about managing common illnesses in ICU, to do basic ICU procedures, and communicate with families will be studied. For resident wellbeing measures will include sleepiness, other fatigue symptoms, and burnout. Investigators will study both resident and patient outcomes so that Canadians can understand trade-offs linked to changing schedules. With this knowledge, Canadians can expect safer care for today's patients and better-trained doctors for the patients of tomorrow.

Background: Strategies to manage residents' fatigue must balance patient safety, resident education and resident wellbeing. The trade-offs among these are not fully understood. A Canadian cluster-randomized clinical trial will provide urgently needed evidence to inform resident scheduling practice and policy. Previous work questions assumptions used to justify duty hour reduction. The investigators found residents working overnight are fatigued but do sleep, are not chronically sleep deprived, learn effectively immediately after being 'on-call' and learn in a 4-week ICU rotation. The pilot cluster randomized clinical trial of 12, 16 and 24h overnight duty suggests that patient safety is compromised with duty periods shorter than 24h: more harmful errors occurred in the 12h schedule, and residents' knowledge of patients and clinical decisions were worst in the 16h schedule. Mortality was similar. Resident wellbeing was worst in the 24h schedule, suggesting a trade-off between patient safety and resident wellbeing. Education was not assessed. The 8 other randomized clinical trials of physician schedules are from the US; 2 studied residents (the providers of first line overnight medical care in Canadian hospitals), and 6 had low power for important effects on patient outcomes. None found differences in mortality or harmful errors or robustly examined educational outcomes. With Canadian Institutes of Health Research bridge funding the investigators completed a Canada-wide survey showing that most ICU overnight in-house physician staffing is by residents, and a pilot of education outcomes demonstrating the feasibility, responsiveness and discriminative power of competency assessment. Goals: To evaluate the effects of 16h and 24h resident duty schedules on patient mortality and safety, resident education and resident wellbeing. Design: A cluster-randomized crossover trial will compare 16h vs. 24h overnight schedules for residents rotating to ICU. Eligible ICUs will care for adult patients, and are anticipated to have rotating residents performing overnight in-house duty. Intervention: 16h and 24h overnight schedules will both be applied for 52 weeks at each site. Schedule crossover order will be randomly allocated (1:1 ratio). All in-house residents will participate in the schedule. Consent will be obtained for resident measurements. Outcomes: are in 3 domains, Patient, Resident Education and Resident Wellbeing. The primary outcome is hospital mortality to 90 days following index ICU admission. Mortality is objective, patient-relevant, frequent (12-20% in adult ICU) and reflects the quality and safety of care. The main resident education outcome is cognitive reasoning, and the main resident wellbeing outcome is emotional exhaustion. Study of patients and residents in 18 ICUs has power \>90% for a 2% difference in mortality and of 90% for important differences in resident education and resident wellbeing. Analyses will use hierarchical regression models to account for clustering by ICU. Expertise: The research team includes experts in patient safety, postgraduate medical education, randomized clinical trials, sleep, and 2 national-level decision-makers. Impact: Key stakeholders actively seek high-quality data about the effects of common overnight schedules on patients and residents. Understanding the benefits and trade-offs will support creation of evidence informed policy about resident schedules and mitigation strategies. This knowledge will improve care for patients and help better train doctors.