[esm]

The counter argument that I have heard is that patient handoffs are where a disproportionate number of errors occur. Increasing the number of shifts means that more patients in the ED or on the floor will have care fragmented between providers, making it more likely that results will not be followed up or that changes in a patient's status will not be recognized.

I don't know at what point the errors from sleep deprivation exceed the errors from patient handoffs. People seem to take different views depending on what side of the work hours debate they fall on.

[hedvig]

This would be easy to do a controlled experiment to compare.