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?

We do the same. I just throw the rounding sheet away when the pt is discharged. Solves a lot of problems. Oddly no one has questioned this yet, as the norm is to put the paper in the managers box.

Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.

Often our complaint is that we were in the rooms more than once per hour, especially on days, therefore I think tracking would be awesome.

Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

we found that charting hourly rounding electronically did not get done on time so hourly rounding is done on a sheet attached to a clipboard in the patient's room. The charge nurse has to make rounds and will sign/time the same sheet. This is to prevent charting ahead and to alert the charge if rounding is being done.

I believe JC ought to come up with a rule to have nurses in the room every 15 minutes and give 20 minutes of massage each time, to at least 6 patients. Seems like it fits their rationales!

Specializes in ICU.

A floor I use to work on had the trackers and they were helpful when you needed to find someone before we got the phones. We also used to have the rounding sheets in the patient rooms and some staff would either fill them all out at once at the beginning of the shift or fill in everything at the end of the night and family said no one ever came in. I guess a few family members took photos of them on phones and turned them in so hourly rounding then moved over to computer charting.

Specializes in CICU.

HOnestly, I ignore the "rounding chart" in the rooms. I chart my rounds in the computer. I've got too much to do without doing some things twice.

My boss asked me about it once. She asked if the CNAs were rounding on my patients - she said she saw my initials on the 0700, but nothing else. I wasn't getting in trouble about it, but I did tell her that of all the things I am expected to accomplish in a day, but particularly before noon, initialing the rounding chart was near, if not at, rock bottom. I've never been reprimanded for it, although I imagine it has been mentioned by management (because they LOVE them). At least my boss seems to know that I am out on the floor, in the rooms, and answering call lights.

By the way, I put personal hydration and personal bathroom breaks above initialing the rounding charts.

Specializes in CICU.

PS - I don't think I would mind the trackers - but that is because I am where I am supposed to be. I wonder if the PTB really know how much time some people "hide out". Maybe they wouldn't if they had tracking devices on...

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
That is just creepy. If they have so little faith in their nurses, maybe the NMs and HR should do a better job of hiring.

I have a friend who works in a pediatric ICU. They wear tracking devises. When an RN enters a room a light comes on over the door (where the call bell lights are). When a tech goes into a room, a different color light comes on. It allows staff to see at a glance where the nearest RN or tech is located. I don't know if management can come back later to see where a particular tracking device was after the fact. I don't look at this as creepy or some type of intrusive spying by management. In this case, I think it is a legit tool to improve pt care.

Specializes in Cardiology and ER Nursing.
Are you guys serious about the tracking devices?!

Yep. Little things you have to wear around.

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

We don't have trackers, but honestly I kind of wish we did - I think it would make people more accountable.

There are long stretches, usually from 1900-0000, where I forget to sign off on the sheet, but by that same token I am in patients' rooms, scanning the patient and then scanning the med. So I do have that. *sigh*

I don't mind the trackers - as someone else said, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing so I just think of it as an extension of my badge.

I know the managers aren't truly monitoring them regularly because at least half of another floor at our hospital spends half their nights across the street at the park smoking.

Specializes in Med Surg, Perinatal, Endoscopy, IVF Lab.

I think the hourly rounding and tracking monitors are a complete joke. I have worked Med/Surg and Perinatal and I have never seen a nurse actually round when they chart they do. Yes they round, yes they chart it, but it's never right. The most typical thing is the nurse is "catching up" on charting at the end of shift and charting all the rounding stuff at once. We chart all or ours on computer, no tracking device. The hospital is now trying to do paper sheets in the rooms as well. WTH is that?! So we now have to DOUBLE chart? I wonder... how do these admin people think we are actually going to TAKE CARE of patients when we have to spend so much time on the computer or writing our initials on paper? That, AND they want to overload us with high-acuity patients and cut staff too. It's ridiculous. Bedside nursing is getting crazier and crazier and they wonder why patient satisfaction scores are always low? Then they get together in some meeting somewhere and decide to dump more on the RN's Shoulders. This profession is going nowhere but downhill. It's sad really.... OH WAIT! To top it off... and this really IS the exciting part.... they want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on in-services for all employees aimed at putting our "happy faces" on and focusing on the patient's happiness and satisfaction. Possibly the patients would be MORE satisfied if they didn't have to share me with ten other patients, and I actually had the time to meet their needs. Ugh.

There were tracking devices at one of my old clinical sites. They had little things on the wall at each nurses station and in patient rooms where you could see where each staff member was. I liked it because I could easily find where my primary nurse was if I needed her. I saw it as an advantage to find help quickly instead of running up and down the halls peeking into rooms trying to find who you were looking for.

At the hospital where I work, we all have phones on us, but that only works well if you remember to write everyone's number down at the beginning of your shift. Otherwise you're wasting time calling the front desk to ask to be transferred to so-in-so.

I also view the rounding sheets as a waste of time. I always chart while in the patient's rooms since each room has a computer on the wall at bedside. I don't see why we have to also initial a sheet on the door. Its double charting in my opinion.

+ Add a Comment