Wednesday, November 25, 2015

ACGME Fitbit App Allows Tracking of Residency Work Hours.....

Chicago, Il- The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), a private, non-profit organization somehow responsible for the establishment and enforcement of accreditation requirements for medical residency and fellowship programs, has announced the development of an iPhone based application for use with the Fitbit activity tracker that will monitor and log work hours, procedures performed, and even Press Ganey patient satisfaction scores.

Generation 7 Robotic Compliance Officer "Rick", shown here managing the enforcement of the 16-hour intern maximum duty hour requirement with a legion of Generation 5 and 6 compliance officers.
"The ACGME takes its role in the development of reasonable policies and guidelines extremely seriously," Generation 7 Autonomous Robotic Compliance Enforcement Officer "Rick" explained. "My primary directive is to reduce resident and fellow fatigue, which plausibly might play a role in hospital medical errors, and to...Phase 2 information requires clearance, please state access code. You have ten seconds to comply."

The application, which will be mandatory for all residents and fellows, will also meter out appropriate punishment on both an individual and program level when infractions occur, which some residents aren't happy about. Mort Fishman MD, a pediatric resident planning to specialize in MOC compliance, is worried that use of the new Fitbit application will violate house staff privacy. "There isn't any evidence that work hour restrictions have improved patient safety and there is certainly no evidence that this new ACGME Fitbit app is...Rick, Rick is that you? But how? I can explain. Rick! No Rick! I can...please I don't want to die. I don't want to die! Rick!!!"

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