Beside Reporting

i am currently the clinical educator in a rehab hospital that has semi-private rooms. Both our nurse manager and administrator would like to begin bedside reporting. We presented this to one of our shared governance councils, and they questioned the legality of this practice in semi-private rooms. Are any of you currently utilizing this form of report, and if so, how is it working for you?

we threatened to start this about 8 months ago and a compromise was reached (informally). we now do shift change report at the chart box, which i like a lot more than the nurse-lounge report . we have the chart (usually), the kardex, and the actual pt a few steps away. I find this helps jog the memory when needed and is a step closer to actually being with the pt/family.

having said that, i do not look forward to full-on bedside report. i have too much real information about real problems that i don't want to tiptoe around in front of the pt/family. and the amt of time needed to include pt/family will be impossible with the current 30 min limit (that is about 5 min per pt). i'm sure that after the pt/family go thru this 6 times, they will tune us out and it would be faster, but the first week of every pt/family's admission will be an impossibly long report.

at the facility where i work we do a combination - a short face to face report, then the off going nurse and i go into each patient's room. we get to determine if there are any patient needs at that time and i get to eyeball the ivf (if any), take a quick look at the iv site when i'm introducing myself to the patient and if there are any wounds or specific concerns, i have the chance to assess those issues at that time.

interestingly enough, since we've implemented bedside rounding, the call lights have decreased, patient satisfaction has improved and - i seem to have more time to get things done.

here are a few links about bedside reporting:

http://www.rehabnurse.org/pdf/rnj317.pdf

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6955-4-1.pdf

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0fss/is_1_16/ai_n27173554/?tag=content;col1

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