Written and Online Residency Guidebook to Improve Resident Efficiency and Knowledge of Best Patient Care Practices

Residents at most institutions change rotations every 2 to 4 weeks. It often takes significant time for residents to become acclimated to the different protocols, expectations, and environments of each unique rotation. As a result, residents often spend time searching for answers, time that could be spent in outside learning and direct patient care. The goal of this resource is to provide a novel guidebook that improves residents' efficiency and knowledge of best patient care practices.

The guidebook begins with an introductory chapter with key contact information that can be filled in for the user's institution, which is followed by 16 rotation-specific chapters. A rotation-based approach was chosen as it focuses the content on the most pertinent information. Thus, trainees can quickly read a chapter to cover the most pertinent content for their current rotation. As a surrogate marker for efficiency, noon-conference attendance logs were queried to assess improvement in on-time attendance after introduction of the guidebook.

After introduction of the learning resources, on-time arrival to noon conference improved for all residents and interns. Guidebook survey results were universally favorable; however, around half of respondents stated that they used the guidebook once or less per rotation.

Underutilization of these resources potentially contributed to the lack of a statistically significant improvement overall. Future directions should focus on augmenting the quality and utilization of the guidebook and then reevaluating if, once well adopted, there is a sustained benefit.