Duty Hours Tracking - Is There an App for That?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Resident Duty Hours Monitoring
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Traditional self-report methods for monitoring residency duty hour compliance are prone to bias and falsification.
• Accurate tracking of duty hours is crucial for resident well-being and effective program development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the accuracy and resident perceptions of a smartphone application (Hours Tracker - HT) versus a self-report system (New Innovations - NI) for tracking orthopedic resident duty hours.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-two orthopedic residents simultaneously tracked duty hours using both NI and HT over four weeks.
• Residents completed a survey on their perceptions of each tracking method.

Main Results:

• No significant difference in overall duty hour violations between NI and HT.
• HT detected more violations of the 8-hour off requirement.
• Residents found HT easier to use and less burdensome, but perceived it as a greater privacy violation.
• Residents reported higher likelihood of falsifying hours with NI.

Conclusions:

• The Hours Tracker app is equivalent in accuracy to New Innovations for duty hours tracking and is better received by residents, especially junior residents.
• Implementing user-friendly and well-received interfaces like app-based tracking is essential for accurate duty hour monitoring and program improvement.
• An app-based approach represents a forward-thinking strategy for modernizing duty hours tracking in residency programs.