Amion can help ensure that schedules comply with ACGME duty-hour limits. Reports are based on the average times people spend at the hospital, not on actual hours reported by residents.

A number of commercial applications poll residents for the hours they work each day or week. Residents have many responsibilities to fill their days, however, and few will likely keep accurate logs of their time in the hospital. If people don't keep accurate logs, the data they provide will be estimates based on their memory of the last several weeks or months. The final reports will be similar to what you get from OnCall.

We cannot guarantee that your RRC will accept the reports from OnCall as validation of compliance. If your schedules do not allow for sufficient rest, however, it's unlikely residents will be able to keep their hours within the ACGME limits.

To set up the reports, put a block schedule on screen and click on a rotation assignment within the table. In the lower right corner of the Infobox, click the to open the Duty Hour toolbox.

Enter the standard number of days and hours a person works while on the selected rotation. Do not include any extra hours that might come from being on call. Enter the time duties begin for the service.

In the example shown above, residents on Ward-O typically begin rounding at 7:30am and if not on call, they leave the hospital at 6:30pm. Residents on the ward do not come into the hospital on weekends unless they're on call and so we've left the weekend days worked at zero.

You can set a different number of hours for each group of residents and interns. Select a staff type from the drop-down menu and customize the number of hours. Be sure and configure the standard hours for each of your rotations too.

Next, go to the call schedule and click on a call service name in the left-most column. The Duty Hour toolbox now lets you set the extra hours a person works when on call for weekdays and weekends. Set the time weekday call duties begin and what time people go home the next day when they're post-call on a weekday. If a call service does not keep a person in the hospital, turn off the "In-house duty" checkbox.

In our example from above, residents on Ward-O work 11-hour weekdays beginning at 7:30am. People who aren't on call typically leave at 6:30pm and so the person on call starts duties at 6:30pm. If rounding the next morning begins at 7:30am, residents work an extra 13 hours when on call Monday through Friday. The extra hours are from 6:30pm to 7:30am when normal duties for the next day begin.

When post-call on a weekday, residents typically stay for rounds, morning report and other teaching moments, but then go home early. If teaching time ends at 11:30, tell OnCall that residents go home at 11:30am when post-call Monday through Friday.

Once you've configured the hours for the first call service, click on the next row in the schedule and set the hours for that one. Continue down the left column until you've set the hours and begin and end times for each call service.

To produce a report, click the icon on the main toolbar to bring up the statistics page. Select Duty hours from the drop-down option in the upper-left corner. The Duty Hour box lets you choose what information to report.

The data you choose to report appears as text in the table. Problem weeks are highlighted. Regardless of the tally you choose to display, all duty-hour violations are flagged with small colored triangles. Mouse over any marker to get a full explanation of the problem.