SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Advancing Interdisciplinary Rounding Practices Through Enhanced Data Transparency

Pdf Summary

This project describes how Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center improved interdisciplinary bedside rounding by creating a custom dashboard to track whether physicians and nurses rounded together. Joint rounding is known to improve communication, patient participation, staff teamwork, and outcomes such as mortality, length of stay, medication errors, and readmissions.<br /><br />The team added a patient survey question in 2018 asking whether a doctor and nurse rounding together helped patients better understand their care. They then built a dashboard using Epic/IHIS electronic medical record data. Nurses document rounding in the patient flowsheet, and the dashboard queries those entries to determine whether rounding occurred, did not occur, or was not documented. It also links each patient to the assigned physician and nurse from the treatment team, allowing tracking by unit, service, and individual clinician.<br /><br />Before the dashboard, the hospital had limited ability to monitor rounding behavior or identify barriers. After implementation in FY22, documented joint rounding increased from 15% to 47% by April 2022 and then stabilized. Reviewing unit-level data helped identify high-performing teams and best practices that could be shared with lower-performing units. The dashboard also enabled comparisons between process data and patient experience survey results.<br /><br />The results suggest that higher rates of patients reporting joint rounding are associated with better HCAHPS performance across several domains, including overall hospital rating, likelihood to recommend, nurse and doctor communication, medication communication, responsiveness, environment, discharge information, and care transitions. When joint rounding occurs, likelihood-to-recommend scores reached the 86th percentile.<br /><br />The project concludes that transparent, reliable data can create accountability, support leadership action, and improve rounding practices, patient satisfaction, teamwork, and outcomes. Future work will focus on improving documentation consistency and studying additional interventions such as geographic localization, nurse leader rounds, and rounding checklists.

Asset Subtitle

Sharon S. Clark

Meta Tag

Author List Heath Penwell, Kristina Layton, Sharon S. Clark

Category Innovations

Concept Patient-Centered Multidisciplinary Bedside Rounding

Concept Communication

Concept Rounding Documentation

Concept Physician

Concept NURSE

Distinguished Finalist

Presenter Organization The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

Presenting Author Sharon S. Clark

Track Technology in Hospital Medicine

Keywords

joint rounding

interdisciplinary bedside rounding

custom dashboard

patient experience

Epic EMR

HCAHPS scores

nurse physician communication

care teamwork

patient satisfaction

Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

Patient-Centered Multidisciplinary Bedside Rounding

Communication

Rounding Documentation

Physician

NURSE