this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
937 points (98.4% liked)
me_irl
8125 readers
1174 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Healthcare has its own problems, but the 12 hour shift model was adopted because it improved patient outcomes. Only having 1 shift change per day provided less opportunity for patient context to get lost in the shuffle. In short, overworked doctors/nurses were better (for patients) than uninformed doctors/nurses.
Moving to 6 hour shifts/4 changes per day would quadruple that risk.
Now, there are plenty of ways to imagine changing procedures, policies, and tooling to reduce this risk, but it would require planning.