What are you doing now?: Use of Duty Time by Residents and Nureses in Emergency Center

Yoo, In Sool; Ryu, Seung; You, Yeon Ho

Abstract

PURPOSE: We wanted to evaluate the actual work patterns of residents and nurses and the effects of controlling visits by relatives on the mortality of patients and their length of stay and on the workload of the residents and nurses.
METHODS
We investigated the actual workload of the residents who worked 12 hours shifts and nurses who worked 8 hours shifts in an emergency center for two weeks. We compared the mortality of the patients, the length of their stay and the work patterns between before we controlled visits by relatives and after we controlled visits by relatives.
RESULTS
On the average, residents spent 407.01 minutes (56.5%) taking care of patients for a shift (720 min.) and nurses spent 305.29 minutes (63.6%) taking care of patients for a shift (480 min.). Although we controlled visits by relatives, we're unable to reduce the patient mortality and the length of their stay. Yet we were able to reduce the unnecessary repeated explanation-time, the resting time and the nurses and residents were able to better concentrate to explain to patients or their relatives. We were also able to increase the treatment time and description time, and especially for residents. Nurses spent 71.86 minutes (15.0%) to take a rest a shift, and residents spent 166.40 minutes (23.1%) resting a shift (p=0.01).
CONCLUSION
To reduce unnecessary repeated explanation-time and the resting time and to allow nurses and residents to better concentrate when explaining to patients or their relatives, and also to increase the treatment and description time, controlling relatives in an emergency center is necessary.