Major teaching hospitals will have to spend an additional $99 to $183 per admission to comply with the Institute of Medicine’s 2008 recommendations to reduce the workload of residents, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine on May 21. The IOM advises that residents be given a five-hour nap after every 16-hour shift, that they have greater supervision and better managed patient hand-offs, and less total work. Assigning midlevel health practitioners to assume some of the residents’ workload or hiring additional residents will cost each teaching hospital $3.2 to $3.5 million per year, according to the study. At best, the IOM’s proposed changes in residents’ hours could reduce errors by 11.3 percent, but more breaks for residents could also increase errors by 10 percent, reports MedPage Today. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education will determine whether to implement the IOM’s recommendations.
