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The problem, and the root cause of many medical mistakes, is medical staff not getting enough sleep. I know of nurses who could barely keep their eyes open whi
by finid 10y ago
The problem, and the root cause of many medical mistakes, is medical staff not getting enough sleep.
I know of nurses who could barely keep their eyes open while driving to work. And that's because they just finished a shift at a different hospital.
At a time, a friend of mine had to be picking up his wife from work, because he was afraid of what might happen if she drove herself.
So let's fix the sleep deprivation problem.
- teej 10y agoSome studies show that sleep deprivation is not a major factor in medical mistakes. Others indicate that patient hand-off is a more important area for medical mistakes. This isn't to say that doctors shouldn't sleep, only to suggest that having doctors work longer to reduce patient hand-off is a legitimate and justified choice. My ideal would be to improve the process and technology behind hand-off enough so that there isn't any justification to have doctors work longer hours. That is how you fix the sleep deprivation problem. Not seeing my wife for 30 hours because she is on call is no fun. > "Overall, the risks of adverse outcomes of elective daytime procedures were similar whether or not the physician had provided medical services the previous night." http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1415994 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1415994 > "Implementation of the handoff program was associated with reductions in medical errors and in preventable adverse events and with improvements in communication, without a negative effect on workflow." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25372088/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25372088/