Hourly Rounding

Nurses General Nursing

Published

My hospital has recently implemented hourly rounding. Aids round on even hours and nurses on odd hours. We address the 5 p's and initial an hourly rounding log that is pinned to the patient's white board. The logs are turned into the manager and reviewed on a daily basis. If they find any discrepancies they talk to the staff members assigned to that pt. Once they are reviewed they are shredded. Now we are questioning how we prove that we are doing hourly rounding to Joint Commission. Is this a Joint Commission requirement? One suggestion was to put an hourly rounding task into our EMR. We would have to fill out a form and document the 5 p's we addressed. We don't think this is feasible on a med/surg unit. If we have 6 pts we would be filling it out 72 times a shift. Some other facilities are scanning the pts ID bands to verify hourly rounding has been completed. We were not thrilled about this idea either. What are your hospitals doing to document hourly rounding?

Specializes in Family Medicine.

Implanted chips inside our earlobes?

Jaade

21 Posts

We do hourly rounding. CNAs do odd hours, we do even hours. We have "PALs" (Patient Access List) which list scheduled tasks by hours in our EMR.

We have to document what the pt is doing, pain, if repositioned, bed position, if bed is in low position and if bed alarm is on, if pt can reach call light, how many side rails are up, if pt is wearing compression devices and if anyone is at bedside (family, dr, etc.). We also have to document if we did any pt education.

Jaade

21 Posts

Oops - didn't mean to hit send yet.

We have trackers we wear that management can use to find out where we are on the unit (say a family member says they didn't see us all night - the manager can show when we went in to check on them).

Joint Commission's Goal #9 for 2013 is reduce the risk of falls. They advocate for hourly rounding to assist in meeting this goal.

Jaade

21 Posts

Sorry, one last thing - I do work on a speciality med/surg unit (Ortho/Spine) and we typically have a pt load of 5-6 pts per shift.

Specializes in ICU.

I used to work on a busy, understaffed med/onc unit. We did hourly rounding... so on the nights I had 9 or (yes, seriously) 10 patients, and if it took me about 5 minutes per room to address the appropriate Ps, when exactly do I chart? When am I supposed to address my own Ps?!

Bringonthenight

310 Posts

I used to work on a busy, understaffed med/onc unit. We did hourly rounding... so on the nights I had 9 or (yes, seriously) 10 patients, and if it took me about 5 minutes per room to address the appropriate Ps, when exactly do I chart? When am I supposed to address my own Ps?!

We do hourly rounding, on nights I have 10-11 patients- no aid. It's hectic, requires constant OCD organization skills haha.

Jenni811, RN

1,032 Posts

Specializes in Intermediate care.

Implant cameras in our brain, or chips inside our head that follow our every move. Perhaps a camera with voice recording will be more effective. Then we hire an advanced practice nurse for every unit that sits in their office all day reviewing our every move while drinking coffee. They should also get paid twice what we as bedside nurses do because it is such a horrible and horrific/stressful job to sit and watch.

yea...that might work!

NickiJules

18 Posts

We also wear locators and sign an hourly rounding log that is taped to the patients wall. RNs are to round every hour but technically we only have to chart q4h. We have been told that these locators track wherever we are and reports are pulled and reviewed, which show how many times the nurse went into each room during their shift. Typically, our pt load is 4-5.

Specializes in Med/Surg,Cardiac.

I'd hate to wear a locator. It's especially difficult when I'm caught up and can't remember exactly what time I did something so I chart an approximate time. There's no way I could document every single thing at an exact time. We round every 2 hours at night and do flowsheets.

~ No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent -Eleanor Roosevelt ~

Ruas61, BSN, RN

1,368 Posts

Specializes in MDS/ UR.

I thought the title of this thread said Holy Rounding. I am going back to bed. 0o

Specializes in ER, progressive care.

We do hourly rounding, too. We have a little sheet that we have to sign. Nurses are supposed to round on the odd hours and CNAs are supposed to round on the even hours. We initial, write the time and write a little note...such as "VS," "sleep," "bathroom," etc.

I'm skeptical about management even looking at these anymore. Before they said they do and then they go to the shredder but I'm pretty sure they go straight to the shredder once they are collected. I know there have been times where I have forgotten to sign some of the papers (mostly towards the end because the CNAs collect them between 0400-0500 for some reason....) and I have yet to be questioned by management about that. And besides, shouldn't our charting account for our rounding? Ugh.

Some hospitals make you wear locators like some PPs mentioned above. Those actually log what rooms you are in as well as log how long you have been in that particular room. I had to wear one at a hospital I worked at as a PCNA and I hated it.

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