Assessment of Inpatient Time Allocation Among First-Year Internal Medicine Residents Using Time-Motion Observations

Key PointsQuestionHow do current first-year internal medicine residents (interns) allocate time during inpatient training? FindingsIn this secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized trial including 80 interns, participants spent more time caring for patients indirectly (eg, recording their work) than interacting with patients or in dedicated educational activities. Direct patient care or education frequently occurred when interns were simultaneously performing indirect patient care. MeaningThese findings provide a comparison with historical trends and a baseline measure for future efforts designed to improve the workday structure and experience of internal medicine trainees. This secondary analysis of time-motion data from participants in a cluster-randomized trial assesses how first-year internal medicine residents allocate time spent working on general medicine inpatient services. ImportanceThe United States spends more than $12 billion annually on graduate medical education. Understanding how residents balance patient care and educational activities may provide insights into how the modern physician workforce is being trained. ObjectiveTo describe how first-year internal medicine residents (interns) allocate time while working on general medicine inpatient services. Design, Setting, and ParticipantsDirect observational secondary analysis, including 6 US university-affiliated and community-based internal medicine programs in the mid-Atlantic region, of the Comparative Effectiveness of Models Optimizing Patient Safety and Resident Education (iCOMPARE) trial, a cluster-randomized trial comparing different duty-hour policies. A total of 194 weekday shifts were observed and time motion data were collected, sampled by daytime, nighttime, and call shifts in proportion to the distribution of shifts within each program from March 10 through May 31, 2016. Data were analyzed from June 1, 2016, through January 5, 2019. Main Outcomes and MeasuresMean time spent in direct and indirect patient care, education, rounds, handoffs, and miscellaneous activities within a 24-hour period and in each of four 6-hour periods (morning, afternoon, evening, and night). Time spent multitasking, simultaneously engaged in combinations of direct patient care, indirect patient care, or education, and in subcategories of indirect patient care were tracked. ResultsA total of 80 interns (55% men; mean [SD] age, 28.7 [2.3] years) were observed across 194 shifts, totaling 2173 hours. A mean (SD) of 15.9 (0.7) hours of a 24-hour period (66%) was spent in indirect patient care, mostly interactions with the patient's medical record or documentation (mean [SD], 10.3 [0.7] hours; 43%). A mean (SD) of 3.0 (0.1) hours was spent in direct patient care (13%) and 1.8 (0.3) hours in education (7%). This pattern was consistent across the 4 periods of the day. Direct patient care and education frequently occurred when interns were performing indirect patient care. Multitasking with 2 or more indirect patient care activities occurred for a mean (SD) of 3.8 (0.4) hours (16%) of the day. Conclusions and RelevanceThis study's findings suggest that within these US teaching programs, interns spend more time participating in indirect patient care than interacting with patients or in dedicated educational activities. These findings provide an essential baseline measure for future efforts designed to improve the workday structure and experience of internal medicine trainees, without making a judgment on the current allocation of time. Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02274818