Objective assessment of sleep and fatigue risk in emergency medicine physicians

Des Plaines, IL — ReadiScores – fatigue data gathered from a novel actigraphy device, the ReadiBand – can be used to index emergency physician (EP) fatigue and therefore can be used to evaluate interventions designed to reduce fatigue in emergency physician populations. This is one conclusion of a study titled, Objective Assessment of Sleep and Fatigue Risk in Emergency Medicine published in the March issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) journal, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).

The study measured fatigue longitudinally to establish the current state of fatigue risk in emergency medicine. The overall goals were to characterize the percentage of time EPs spent in a fatigued state during shifts and to test the hypothesis that later shift start times would be associated with greater fatigue because of circadian rhythm disruption.

The study assessed sleep and fatigue risk in EPs over the course of two months using the wearable ReadiBand device. Overall ReadiScores demonstrated that EPs spent approximately 50% of their shift in a high state of cognitive readiness, and they spent almost 25% of their time in a reduced or significantly impaired state.

The lead author of the study is Lauren A. Fowler, PhD, professor of neuroscience at Wake Forest School of Medicine. With this study, Fowler et. al longitudinally and objectively assess fatigue in EPs and demonstrate fatigue risk by shift, laying the groundwork for the future research needed to examine system-level interventions for reducing fatigue in emergency physicians.

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ABOUT ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE

Academic Emergency Medicine, the monthly journal of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, features the best in peer-reviewed, cutting-edge original research relevant to the practice and investigation of emergency care. The above study is published open access and can be downloaded by following https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14606. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Laura Giblin at lgiblin@saem.org.

ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE

SAEM is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of care of the acutely ill and injured patient by leading the advancement of academic emergency medicine through education and research, advocacy, and professional development. To learn more, visit saem.org.