Resident Supervision and Patient Safety: Do Different Levels of Resident Supervision Affect the Rate of Morbidity and Mortality Cases?

BackgroundIn our academic emergency department, our senior residents lead their own patient care team, known as the red team (RT). Attending physicians are responsible for managing their own team (AT) and precepting the senior resident's cases.ObjectiveWe hypothesized that the RT would have the same number of morbidity and mortality (M&M) cases and similar numbers of adverse outcomes as the AT. We also hypothesized that there would be no increase in M&M cases during the first quarter of every academic year.MethodsWe obtained data from M&M cases from 2009–2013, including month and year of patient visit, standard of care code (SoCC), and whether the patient was seen by the RT or an AT. Data were analyzed using a χ2 test comparing expected outcomes with observed outcomes.ResultsThere was a total of 117 M&M cases during the study period with a SoCC ≥ 3; 76 cases were AT and 41 cases were RT. There was no statistically significant difference between expected and observed number of cases. Mean RT and AT SoCCs were 4.03 and 4.23, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups for SoCC. Mean SoCC was not significantly different for the first quarter of the year.ConclusionsWe found that our patient care model did not lead to an increased number of M&M cases and RT cases were not associated with worse outcomes overall. Additionally, there was no increased rate of M&M cases in the beginning of the academic year.