Negotiations were focused on 140 rosters the doctors' union said contributed to staff fatigue.
The NZRDA has previously said the rostered seven nights in a row and 12 days in a row contributed to high levels of exhaustion.
In a survey of more than 3000 resident doctors, 1182 revealed they had made a mistake because of fatigue from working long, late hours. And 275 had fallen asleep at the wheel on their way home.
The union said the negotiations were never about money.
Today, the DHBs said they had agreed to reduce the number of consecutive night and day shifts that registered medical officers could be rostered on and ensure there was a contractual entitlement for the appropriate rest time.
"Now the union is demanding that the days off, which result from these changes, must be linked to weekend days off."
Julie Patterson, lead CEO for the DHBs' employment relations programme, said this shift for "lifestyle rosters" would significantly affect the quality and timeliness of services to the public.
"Hospitals provide services 24 hours a day, seven days a week and, as we all know, people don't get sick only between 8am and 5.30pm Monday to Friday."
She called on the union to acknowledge DHBs were there to serve the health needs of New Zealanders - not just the "pay and lifestyle interests" pursued by the union.
Patterson also expressed concern about the effect the union demands would have on doctor training.
Today, in a statement the doctors' association's national secretary Dr Deborah Powell acknowledged the DHBs had come a long way from a simple no.
"However, this is something we need to get right and there is still a way to go before we can safely say we are there."
She said outstanding issues included looking at how the rostered days off were meaningful for resident doctors, ensuring working days offered continuity for patients and doctors' training, room for doctors to individually discuss their rosters with their individual DHBs and the workload each doctor was responsible for.
Dr Powell added the DHBs wanted the day of a night shift to count as a rostered day off but said this gave doctors precious little freetime.
"Not to sleep during the day ahead of that night shift would result in our effectively being up 24 hours by the end of that night shift; an unsafe proposition."
Dr Powell said residents had agreed to work back to back weekends and take up to half of their days off during the week.
"In recognition of this disruption to our lives, we want at least some of our time off to be around what weekends we do have free, so we can have some meaningful quality time with family and friends."
