The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education said lifting any caps on work hours of physicians-in-training will have to wait another year while patient safety and other issues are more closely scrutinized, according to Forbes.
Here are five things to know:
1. In 2011, ACGME imposed stricter work hours for residents including a 16-consecutive hour cap on shifts that could be worked by first-year medical residents as well as other limits that capped other residents to 28 consecutive hour shifts.
2. The caps have some medical groups and physician educators questioning whether or not they improve patient safety. The caps may have instead contributed to other medical errors because care is handed off more frequently to other health professionals.
3. ACGME's CEO Thomas J. Nasca, MD, said a task force convened to review the caps along with a host of other work issues including professionalism, fatigue, clinical responsibilities and teamwork is needed.
4. ACGME earlier said it hoped to post recommendations for public comment by April, but said it now needs more time to deliberate input from more than 60 medical groups as well as scientific literature and an ongoing research trial.
5. ACGME, established in 1981 and based in Chicago, is a private nonprofit organization that sets standards for U.S. graduate medical education programs, the institutions that sponsor them and renders accreditation decisions based on compliance with those standards.