Daylight savings time starts in March, as we all “spring ahead” an hour. Most of us lament the lost hour of sleep as we dutifully change our clocks and contemplate the adjustments we make to our childrens’, and pets, schedules. But the time change has real-life consequences, in fact. Research has shown time and again that the start of daylight savings time brings with it an increase in health and safety risks such as heart attacks and fatal car crashes. Well, it turns out the risk of medical malpractice also jumps; springing ahead propels medical errors.

A recent report in the Journal of Internal Medicine reveals that medicine is not immune to the time change. The article revealed that the number of medical malpractice events due to human errors increased 18.7% in the week after the one hour time change. By comparison, there was no difference in human errors in the week following the annual return to standard time in the fall (“fall back”).

Long-time readers of this blog may recall prior articles regarding medical malpractice related to providers suffering from sleep deprivation. This is a chronic problem. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) maintains that all adults – including doctors – should get seven hours of sleep per night. Obviously folks are less likely to get those seven hours on that evening in March.

How might we prevent this proliferation of errors? The authors of the paper recommended, for example, that healthcare organizations recognize that this is a timeframe with increased errors. They recommend that the organizations then consider arranging shifts in such a way as to mitigate these errors from happening. For its part, the AASM has released a position statement taking a broader approach: it proposes abolishing daylight savings time altogether. The former would, ideally, be an easier lift.