Blum, A. B., Shea, S., Czeisler, C. A., Landrigan, C. P., & Leape L. (2011). Implementing the 2009 Institute of Medicine recommendations on resident physician work hours, supervision, and safety. Nature of Science and Sleep (3). Retrieved from http://www.dovepress.com/getfile.php?fileID=10401.

In September 2010 the the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) presented its new rules for physician and resident functionality in care delivery settings. The rules, which cover everything from number of hours an individual can work in a day to handover of patients between doctors, became effective this July 2011. The Institute of Medicine, however, feels that the ACGME rules don’t cover enough, both in terms of safety and health of patients as well as that of doctors. This white paper presents a number of supplemental rules and regulations that the Institute of Medicine believe will improve performance, reduce medical errors, decrease costs, and much more.

Some of the recommendations in this paper include limiting the amount of hours a doctor may work in any given day, implementing policies for physician moonlighting, and increasing the training for effective transfer of patients.