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Comment by jeffxtreme | Hacker News Reader

Not only are they "designed to allow patients as little sleep as possible", but also doctors too. Residents and doctors frequently have take on 30-36 hour shifts.. How they could effectively treat patients with this level sleep deprivation is beyond me.

Maybe hospitals just have a vendetta on sleep in general?

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It's because doctor handovers are surprisingly dangerous.

Well yeah, a handover after thirty hours at work would be incredibly dangerous.

That doesn't mean you should extend the shifts, quite the opposite. How can we get real data on work quality from well-rested doctors when the comparison is between thirty and thirty-four hour shifts?

That's an interesting angle, and I'm sure you're right. I'd like to read more. Do you have a source for that?

[0] says: > Handover is clearly a time when errors or omissions in key information can have critical consequences. Statistics from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death showed that in 13.5 per cent of cases where patients died within four days of admission, poor communication − between and within clinical teams − was an important issue contributing to the adverse outcomes.

Might be a starting point at least.

[0] https://www.hsj.co.uk/technology-and-innovation/taking-the-r...

This is the usual answer but countries closer to the European Working Time Directive have better outcomes.

Four shifts a day of 8 hours schedule will solve that. 2 hours is a very long overlap to hand over.

Nah, overworked and understaffed because (in the US's for-profit hospitals) more staff == reduced margin.

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