Background

Current duty hour restrictions have led to increased patient handoffs as well as increased use of faculty in the nocturnist role. Nocturnists typically supervise residents and perform direct patient care leading to a diversity of provider experience level during morning handoffs. In this study, we explored how the presence of nocturnists impacts perceptions patient safety, quality, and educational value of morning care transitions.

Methods

We performed a cross-sectional survey examining the housestaff and attending perceptions of the morning sign-out of overnight admissions from both night float residents and nocturnists in July of 2016. Survey responses were Likert-style format, querying respondents’ level of agreement (1-5, strongly disagree to strongly agree) with statements. 108 providers responded (41% response rate)

Results

Relative to attendings, residents reported feeling like they had less time to ask questions (4.0 vs. 5.0, p < 0.001) and felt less comfortable asking questions of the nocturnist during handoff (4.0 vs. 5.0, p < 0.001). Residents were also less comfortable than attendings in changing a nocturnist’s plan of care (4.0 vs. 5.0, p < 0.001). Housestaff reported that receiving signout from the overnight resident was more likely to improve their confidence managing similar conditions (4.0 vs. 3.0, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

The benefits of nocturnist supervision may come at an educational cost as trainees feel less comfortable asking questions or changing the plan of care. With increasingly prevalent night float systems and nocturnist providers, academic programs have to negotiate the balancing safe and high-quality patient care with creating positive learning environments and clear expectations.

/pdf/by-the-light-of-day-quality-safety-and-education-during-the-qmf8coi267.pdf

By the Light of Day: Quality, Safety, and Education During the Overnight Admission Handoff.

Introduction: Although in-person hospitalist presence, increasingly staffed by dedicated nocturnists, has become the norm overnight in the hospital, the scope of nocturnist practice and typical wor...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21548331.2021.1932507

The scope of hospital medicine practice at night: a national survey of night shift hospitalists

BACKGROUND Nocturnists (overnight hospitalists) are commonly implemented in US teaching hospitals to adhere to per-resident patient caps and improve care but are rare in Canada, where patient caps and duty hours are comparatively flexible. Our objective was to assess the impact of a newly implemented nocturnist program on perceived quality of care, code status documentation and patient outcomes. METHODS Nocturnists were phased in between June 2018 and December 2019 at Toronto General Hospital, a large academic teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario. We performed a quality-improvement study comparing rates of code status entry into the electronic health record at admission, in-hospital mortality, the 30-day readmission rate and hospital length of stay for patients with cancer admitted by nocturnists and by residents. Surveys were administered in June 2019 to general internal medicine faculty and residents to assess their perceptions of the impact of the nocturnist program. RESULTS From July 2018 to June 2019, 30 nocturnists were on duty for 241/364 nights (66.5%), reducing the mean maximum overnight per-resident patient census from 40 (standard deviation [SD] 4) to 25 (SD 5) (p < 0.001). The rate of admission code status entry was 35.3% among patients admitted by residents (n = 133) and 54.9% among those admitted by nocturnists (n = 339) (p < 0.001). The mortality rate was 10.5% among patients admitted by residents and 5.6% among those admitted by nocturnists (p = 0.06), the 30-day readmission rate was 8.3% and 5.9%, respectively (p = 0.4), and the mean acute length of stay was 7.2 (SD 7.0) days and 6.4 (SD 7.8) days, respectively (p = 0.3). Surveys were completed by 15/24 faculty (response rate 62%), who perceived improvements in patient safety, efficiency and trainee education; however, only 30/102 residents (response rate 29.4%) completed the survey. INTERPRETATION Although implementation of a nocturnist program did not affect patient outcomes, it reduced residents' overnight patient census, and improved faculty perceptions of quality of care and education, as well as documentation of code status. Our results support nocturnist implementation in Canadian teaching hospitals.

Impact of an internal medicine nocturnist service on care of patients with cancer at a large Canadian teaching hospital: a quality-improvement study.

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By the Light of Day: Quality, Safety, and Education During the Overnight Admission Handoff.