The Hourly Rounding Log For Patient Safety, Reduction Of Falls, Increase Patient Satisfaction

A change I would recommend for this department is for the staff to become more aware of how rounding and pain management affects the patient experience. Another suggestion based on the objective of improving patient experience would be to continue educating staff on how patient experience plays a crucial role in the reimbursement and how it impacts not only the hospital but them as well. I also recommend that the staff should continue performing rounding and pain management as if they were still being measured so that eventually these two areas will occur automatically without even having to think about it. By doing so, it will turn into a habit and will hopefully lead to a more consistent score in these two areas. New staff should also be trained that both monitoring for pain management and rounding is standard practice for the unit. As it is a lot easier to train someone new to get into this habit earlier than it is to try and implement it later after he/she has already established a routine. Staff members that have a higher role in the department must also continue to lead by example as well, in order to instill the importance of these two areas. Lastly, I recommend that the department needs to find a way to motivate and encourage staff to do rounding and pain management effectively with more internal rewards such as staff members seeing the positive impact focusing on these two areas have on patient lives.

Providing the best care to each patient starts with providing the proper amount of staff members to each unit. Looking at the needs of different units not only allows administration to see areas for improvement, but also areas that are being handled correctly. Utilizing the indicators provided by The Joint Commission, 4 East, a pediatric medical/surgical floor, has a high rate of falls and nosocomial pressure ulcers that appears to be related to the increase overtime nurses have been working for that floor (Nightingale, 2010). Research has shown increases in adverse events have been related to nurses working over 40 hours a week (Bae, 2012).

Staffing needs affect the nursing department’s budget, staff productivity, the quality of care provided to patients and even the retention of nurses (Jooste, 2013). The nurse manager has to explain to the management of the benefits of change in providing adequate staffing all the time. Adequate staffing helps staff retention. Staff retention saves a lot of money in terms of orienting new people to the unit. Safe staffing always helps in the reduction of falls, infection rates, pressure ulcers, decrease hospital stays and death. Flexible and creative scheduling is essential for retaining staff and promoting a positive work climate (Grohar-Murray & Langan, 2011). Adequate staffing with good staffing ratio will help nurses to concentrate on their patient care which may help in a reduction in medical errors and lawsuits to the hospital.

Safety is an essential factor in the creation of the healing environment and this is dependent on the role of the caregiver and the patient when it is possible. “Safety is a basic component of professional nursing and Caritas Processes. Safety concerns affect all of the nurse’s activities related to supporting, protecting, and correcting the environment for healing at all levels, To feel safe and protected is a basic need” (Watson, 2008, p. 13). Many factors impede the safety of patients in a healing environment such as Risk of falls, Pressure ulcers, and close calls. Ford’s literature (as cited in Woolley et al, 2012) found that “hourly rounding resulted in a 52% reduction in call light use, giving nurses more time to provide patient care and prevent patient calls” and in Bourgault et al.’s study conducted in 2006 (as cited in Woolley et al, 2012) “expected outcomes of hourly rounding included increase

The purpose of this article is to discuss appropriate nurse staffing and staffing ratios and its impact on patient care. Although the issue is just not about numbers as we discuss staffing we begin to see how complex the issue has become over the years. Many factors can affect appropriate nurse staffing ratios. As we investigate nurse staffing ratios we can see the importance of finding the right mix and number of nurses to provide quality care for patients.

The biggest distractions as an acute care leader that impacts my work are numerous administrative meetings; they tend to take up most of my daily schedule leaving me with little time to talk to the patients. To alleviate this challenge I have allocated time on my daily calendar to participate in bedside inter-disciplinary and leader rounding on the unit with the team to discuss patient plan of care with other healthcare teams, patient and family. This time allocation enables me to have designated time dedicated to making sure the patient receives my professional presence that supports

Nurse-to-patient ratios is not a new topic of debate for all of us who deliver care to patients every day. Only lately it has been a big issue that have caught the attention of many. Demands by the medical community for changes concerning staffing, asking for the government interventions in minimum staffing laws. Registered nurses have long acknowledged and continue to emphasize that staffing issues are an ongoing concern, one that influences the safety of both the patient and the nurse. (ANA, 2015) .nowadays hospitals are running for profit and the emphasis is not put on job burnout, stress, and endangerment of patients. Nursing shortages is a very pertinent problem, it will be optimum to have laws in place to help with the issue, however meanwhile leadership and management methods to the matter can help to mend the nursing situation and avoid many of the damaging effects of unfitting nurse-to-patient ratios.

The Author did use one graph to identify the most common use for the call light and another graph was used to identify the frequency of call light usage in baseline one- hour rounding and two-hour rounding. Author used t test for comparisons of patient satisfaction scores. The researcher used statistical software to identify the difference between two independent means. Two vendors at the hospital were tracking patient satisfaction score, the sample size and standard deviations. These scores used for t calculations (Meade, Bursell, Ketelsen , 2006).

Rounding allows nurses to gather information in a structured way. It’s proactive, not reactive like call light responses. It’s a great way to get a handle on patient problems before they occur. It’s all about providing the best patient-driven health care… The great thing about hourly rounding is that it doesn’t benefit only the patients. (¶ 4).

Change of shift in the nursing profession is unique (Caruso, 2007). Information is transferred between nurses verbally and through written communication. In many facilities shift report from one shift to another involved sitting down and getting all your orders from a caredex and then talking with the previous nurse face to face going over pertinent information regarding their patients. This type of report usually happens in a report room or sometimes in the hallways or other common

Leader patient rounding (LPR) is an evidence-based practice that allow leaders to be actively involved in the patient care system provided within the healthcare organization, and allowing real time for leaders to resolve issues that the patient / family may deem inappropriate care. LPR is not only for the patient / family, it enables leader visibility for the staff to interact with the leader. Therefore education / learning can be provided to the staff immediately when problems are identified. During LPR visits leaders address the 3 Ps: pain, position, and potty, the patient’s comfort, assess their environment, and identify the time someone will return before leaving the room. If follow up is warranted please ensure it happens.

Hourly rounding also known as intentional rounding or comfort rounding is an initiative that hospitals nationwide are beginning to implement. Hourly rounding should be purposeful. “Hourly rounding is a systematic proactive nurse-driven evidence based intervention to anticipate and address needs in hospitalized patients” (Deitrick, Baker, Paxton, Flores, & Swavely, 2012, p.13). “Purposeful nurse rounds encompass a practice where nurses attend to and document scheduled patient reviews at pre-determined and regular intervals (hourly or second hourly)” (Lyons, Biunero, & Lamont, 2015, p.31).

Despite many efforts to improve staffing numbers, there is often still a staff shortage among staff in hospitals and acute care settings. While the most obvious solution to short staffing is to hire more nurses, there are also other ways to make staffing more effective. A patient acuity tool is a staffing instrument that can be used to decide how much time and attention each individual patient requires. By knowing the acuity level of each patient, charge nurses can decide how many patients each nurse can be assigned to at a time. This essay describes the way a patient acuity instrument improves healthcare outcomes by promoting patient-centered care and improving on key nurse competencies including teamwork and collaboration, quality improvement, and safety measures.

Patients in a hospital and/or healthcare facilities have to be cared for all day and all night, everyday of the week by nurses. The usual way to fulfill this need is to divide up the day into three 8-hour shifts. Different shifts have been put into place to help improve nurse satisfaction, decrease the nursing shortage and save the hospital money. The 24-hour day is made up of two 12-hour shifts; 12 hours in the day and 12 hours at night. There has been quite an ongoing debate over the years regarding this issue of nurses working over 8 hours in a single day. Many people, such as hospital nursing administrators, have reason to believe that working long hour shifts causes more errors in

Hourly rounding contributes in several key areas to achievement of high levels of patient satisfaction, including quality of care and patient safety. This puts patients at the center of care by building on the fundamental aspects of care, which are so important. Thus by checking in on patients in wards regularly to see whether they are comfortable and have everything they need can produce a number of positive results. Nurses