Educational Conference Scheduling, Patient Discharge Time, and Resident Satisfaction

Limits on resident duty hours instituted in 2003 and 2011 have compressed medical resident daily workload. Despite this compression, residents must gain competence to practice medicine without supervision.

We sought to determine whether moving the time our educational conference is scheduled affects the time when patient discharges are completed on an internal medicine teaching service.

The study was conducted at a county hospital within a large internal medicine residency program. During the 4-month study period, the morning report conference for internal medicine residents was shifted from 8:30 am to 2 pm. Patient discharge times, defined as the time the discharge order set was signed, were obtained for the service via the electronic health record. The outcomes measured were patient discharge time variation and internal medicine resident preference for conference time.

Survey response rate was 82% (42 of 51). Of the residents who responded, 64% (27 of 42) preferred the 8:30 am report time, and 74% (31 of 42) felt the 8:30 am time was also better for education and timing of teaching rounds. There was no difference in discharge times for 2999 patients on the medicine teaching service, whether educational case conference morning report occurred at 8:30 am or at 2 pm.

Medical patient average discharge time was not influenced by time of educational conference. Factors other than the timing of educational conference appear to influence hospital discharge times on an inpatient internal medicine service.