Duty Hours Entry

Entry of duty hours are for us to help identify issues early, and advocate for you.  If you feel you may be in danger of violating duty hours, we ask that you proactively contact your chief resident to see if we can come up with a solution before it happens.  

See the duty hours policy webpage for guidance on what the rules are: Duty Hours Policies 

The ACGME has duty hour rules, and NY State has another set of similar rules (NYS 405 Regulations).  We are expected to meet the requirements of both, so whichever rule is more strict is the one we must follow. 

New Innovations Web Address: 

https://www.new-innov.com/Login/Home.aspx

Institution: downstate

If you don't know your username/password.  You can email: Lisa.Pierce@downstate.edu

Lisa Pierce (she/her/hers)

Graduate Medical Education

Medical Education Systems Manager

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University

Lisa.Pierce@downstate.edu

929-271-3012

FAQs for Duty Hours logging on New Innovations

By Anoop Puskoor

Q) I Just came off vacation. Do I need to log it and if yes, how?

A) Yes! Vacation time does need to be logged as it is a part of your overall paid time. Vacation logging is done the same way as your routine duty hour logging with the only difference being the type of shift being selected-Instead of “routine shift”, please select “vacation” and log all the hours during that block. 

Q) I just finished a 24 hr call shift in ICU/CCU, but I was asked to stay for a part of rounds which extended my shift to 27 hrs! Did I violate duty hours?!

A) No, the 24 hr call after which you stay for rounds is not considered a violation. 

Continuous on-site duty is limited to 24 hrs, but an additional 3 hrs are assigned and allowed for patient safety/handoff and resident education. If you are being asked to perform active patient care in this transition period-please feel empowered to refuse and let the site Chief Resident know immediately. You are well within your right to refuse, and as someone who just completed 24 hrs of patient care, it is a patient safety issue for you to continue performing active patient care. 

Q) I logged my 27 hrs in the ICU in New Innovations, and I understand that I did not violate duty hours but why does New Innovations say I did?

A) Unfortunately the way it is currently set up, New Innovations is unable to differentiate patient-care and handoff/education within our “routine shift” selection on NI, which is why a duty hour violation is being triggered when we log those hours. We are working on solutions to delineate the two, but in the mean-time the solution is to log only your active patient care hours and being cognizant of stopping active patient care at 24 hrs and hand off active duties to your call colleague. 

Q) So you are saying that I should sign out my unstable patient to my extremely busy cross coverage colleague just because I am violating duty hours?

A) No. There are exceptions to clinical duty hours and one of them being that residents can-on their own initiative-stay beyond hours to take care of a SINGLE severely ill/unstable patient or to attend to the humanistic needs of a patient or family members. 

Q) I can't remember to log my duty hours, it’s okay if I just do it together once every few months right?

A) NO! Please don't do that. It is a program and GME requirement that duty hours be logged on a weekly basis. We understand that it might seem trivial to residents, who are so deeply entrenched in clinical work all day but it is an extremely crucial component of Program operations- It is not just a way for program leadership to monitor hours and violations but is also required by Payroll to account for the hours that the paychecks are being written for.