Hourly rounding. Are you kidding me?

Nurses Relations

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I don't think it's physically possible for one nurse with seven patients to do so. Most places share the job with a CNA, so it is really every two, which is consistently doable most days. But if it's just the nurse with seven pts? C'mon!

Why does administration think that a meaningful round is a minute per room? Sometimes, I'll walk away from a patients room after 15 minutes (toile ting, answering questions, getting water, calling dietary because the pt is unhappy with the food). And that is someone who is stable!

guaguachong

24 Posts

i been working 4 years, med-surg, cardiac, float pull, hh, different hospitals, i just feel like some places i would not want to work no matter how much they pay. they do not care and do not know what they are doing. one nurse round all 7 pts hourly with charting and all patients care. that is crazy.... well, if they told me i do not have to chart, i may can do so through....

TheCommuter, BSN, RN

102 Articles; 27,612 Posts

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

My workplace requires hourly rounds. It is a specialty hospital that is chronically understaffed, so each nurse has anywhere from 7 to 12 patients depending on the number of staff members who called out for the shift.

Sorry, but the hourly rounds cannot always be accomplished in a timely manner. If administration really cared about timely rounds and patient safety, our staffing levels would be more appropriate than they currently are. (((((RANT OVER))))).

Why do these continually impossible and negativly reinforced errands keep falling on nursing? I truly believe in patient rounding, but to enforce it be done every hour is ludricus. Why are we constantly being set up for failure?? Do any of these facilities that are requiring frequent rounding provide computers on wheels or labtops/tablets? Are computers available in the pt rooms? Where do they think we have the time to do all the required documentation, give medications, see every pt individually, round with MDs, report abnormal findings/labs etc. Much less actually touch and talk to our patients families---where oh where do these managers really work??? Certainly they are far removed from the clinical setting. What has to happen for them to get a reality check??

TheCommuter, BSN, RN

102 Articles; 27,612 Posts

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Do any of these facilities that are requiring frequent rounding provide computers on wheels or labtops/tablets?

My hospital furnished the nursing staff with computers on wheels last year.

But as far as hourly rounds are concerned, as Sweet Brown would say: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

guaguachong

24 Posts

My workplace requires hourly rounds. It is a specialty hospital that is chronically understaffed, so each nurse has anywhere from 7 to 12 patients depending on the number of staff members who called out for the shift.

Sorry, but the hourly rounds cannot always be accomplished in a timely manner. If administration really cared about timely rounds and patient safety, our staffing levels would be more appropriate than they currently are. (((((RANT OVER))))).

you are the mam. 7 to 12 pts. i did take 7 at night when i just started as rockie. i may not even survive in your hospital. hopefully it is something like windfield, which might happen to be true.

Karou

700 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg.

It is impossible. If you have 7 patients, that is spending less than 10 minutes in each room when you go there for your "hourly rounding" and gives NO time for charting. Ridiculous.

We do hourly rounding but it's actually every other because the PCT does it also. We take turns odds/evens.

Dranger

1,871 Posts

Hourly rounds can mean a lot of things...I consider peaking my head in at night an hourly round.

ka2rn

17 Posts

The facility I work at makes us ask them four p's when we do hourly rounding. Pain, potty, position, and possessions. I have trouble asking grown adults do they need to use the potty lol. They also last week counted how many times our call lights went off and my number was high one day but I had a very demanding group. Some people are just going to hit the call light a hundred times regardless. We also have 7 patients per nurse :(

Specializes in Orthopedic, LTC, STR, Med-Surg, Tele.

At my hospital we check them hourly but take turns between CNA and RN. I can't imagine doing it with seven patients, without an aide. Maybe on night shift. If they were all stable. And sleeping. We are supposed to ask the 4 P's every hour but most of my patients are walkie talkies and oh boy are they able to make their needs known!

Guests

Guest

0 Posts

If by hourly rounding they mean hourly flybys to make sure they're still alive, OK, perhaps... if they mean help them to the commode, on/off a bedpan, listen to them ("I have the time")... and chart and pass meds... no fing way.

On the rare occasion that I draw a slate of med-surg boarders, it's sometimes impossible to even get meds passed on schedule considering I have to visit several Pyxi, had the foresight to order meds tubed from the Mother Ship, and taken the 10 minutes to tell some patients about each one, let them scrutinize the pill, take them o-n-e---b-y---o-n-e---b-y---o-n-e... and then drop every 4th one during their inspection.

Yet another reason I'm an ED, NOC shift lifer

Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

We just got the same message in our huddles. HAHAHAHAHA.

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