Pediatric hospitalist perceptions of the impact of duty hour changes on education and patient care.

Objective: The goal of this study was to measure the impact of the new 2011 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education duty hour standards (DHS) on education, patient care, and overall satisfaction as perceived by pediatric hospitalist faculty.

Methods: We undertook a nonrandomized but controlled study of 23 pediatric hospitalist faculty members during a trial of the new DHS in 2011. During the intervention (January), residents piloted schedules that complied with the new DHS, and in the control period (February), resident schedules complied with previous DHS. Daily surveys solicited faculty perceptions of the amount and quality of teaching provided, time with patients, quality of patient care, and overall faculty satisfaction. Faculty were also surveyed on their years of experience as a hospitalist and clinical teaching activity. Multiple logistic regression analysis with generalized estimating equations was used to examine outcome associations after adjusting for census and accounting for multiple attending reports.

Results: Census volumes were higher in the control group. During the intervention, faculty were less likely to rate their quality of teaching (odds ratio [OR]: 0.40 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.18-0.88]) and overall satisfaction with the shift (OR: 0.23 [95% CI: 0.08-0.66]) as good/excellent compared with controls. During the intervention, more years of experience as a hospitalist were associated with rating quality of patient care provided as good/excellent (OR: 1.77 [95% CI: 1.23-2.54]).

Conclusions: Faculty were less likely to rate their quality of teaching and overall satisfaction as good/excellent during a trial of the 2011 DHS. In addition, more experienced faculty were more likely to rate the quality of care highly.