A Strategy to Reduce Interruptions at Hospital Morning Report

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The learning atmosphere of hospital morning report is frequently interrupted by nonurgent beeper pages to participating residents. INTERVENTION: During 176 consecutive internal medicine morning reports, 1 of the 4 chief residents at a single academic medical center collected and answered house staff pages during the 30-minute conference. RESULTS: A total of 884 pages were answered during this period. Of these, 743 could wait until after the end of morning report, resulting in more than 4 interruptions averted per session. Over half of the pages were from nursing personnel. There was no significant decrease in the total number of pages or nurse pages during the observation period. DISCUSSION: In summary, our simple system of holding intern pages resulted in a dramatic reduction in interruptions during hospital morning report.