Hourly Rounding / Walking Reports

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in ICU/CCU, Home Health/Hospice, Cath Lab,.

Hello,

My hospital is thinking about moving to hourly rounding combined with walking reports. Has anyone out there used these and how well do they work for you? Some information out there seems to indicate that hourly rounding leads to less call lights and decreased falls with increase patient care - I'm wondering if nurses using it feel this is true.

Thanks for any responses,

Pat

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

We do vebal report in conference then walk room to room for follow up report and introductions to the patient. It works well and take almost less time than taped report. Patients seem to like being able to see their next shift nurse before it is late and the lights are out on night shifts too.

Hourly rounding is good when you have time to do it.

Hourly rounding would be great if it could actually happen. I work on a very busy unit and the hospital has initiated the hourly rounding to up patient satisfaction scores. In the hourly rounding we are required to ask about pain, positioning and toileting. The fact of the matter is you can not always get to every room every hour and it has not boosted our scores at all. In fact in some surveys the patients have responded with, if you are going to ask if I hurt every hour have something for my pain every hour. Yet it has decreased the cal light use so the unit is a bit quieter.

I don't know what your patient load/acuity is but I find q 2 hour rounds to be reasonably efficient. There's no way we would have time for 1 hour rounds.

That has been our complaint all along. I work on a med-surg/cardiac icu step down unit. Primary nursing is 3-1, team nursing is 6-2. A lot of the time we have ICU appropriate patients, so even making sure that I see everyone every 2 hours is sometimes hard esp. with the team nursing.

Specializes in Stroke Rehab, Elderly, Rehab. Ortho.

We do walking reports and it works ok. I work nights on Ortho and do hourly rounds as much as I am able to.... I always tell the Pt before they go to sleep that I will check on them regularly and will try to get there hourly but wont be waking them unnessarily...so if they see me in their room they know why I am there....thy find that reassuring I think and for me I do think it does cut down on the call lights...many a time I have walked in and the Pt is in pain and have dropped their call light out of reach, or they are tryingto climb out of bed!!!

Specializes in NICU.

On our unit we do 2 hour rounding and assistants do 2 hour rounding. Nurses round on the even hours and assistants round on the odd hours. It has decreased our falls greatly. We went from about 10 falls a month to 1-2 falls a month. When we round we ask if there is anything they need, do they need to use the bathroom, and is everything within their reach. Works well for us.

It is protocol for us to do hourly rounds, works great when we can do it! As for walking reports, we quit doing them quite a number of years ago and I was very glad to see it go. What a breach of confidentiality to be discussing a patient in front of them, a roommate or out in the hall! I think it was very uncomfortable for the patient for the most part also for that reason.

We did "walking reports" and I found that to be the best way to actually see the patients. We not only gave report, we went into the room and checked IVs and drips as we were getting report. This was also a nice time ti mention to someone that they have forgotten to empty their foleys for an example. I also think that people made sure they were not leaving a huge mess for the next shift when they knew someone was coming in their room before they left for the day.

Specializes in Day Surgery, Agency, Cath Lab, LTC/Psych.

There was an article on hourly rounding in September 06 issue of the American Journal of Nursing. The research proved that hourly rounding significantly cut down on call light use. I must have thrown away that particular issue, but the February 07 issue has a letter from Tiffini Mericle, the DON at Wright Medical Center in Iowa. She initiated a similar call-light reduction program that was outlined in the Sept 06 issue that resulted in a decrease in the number of call light calls by 72%! She states that the hospital's satisfaction surveys also went up. Even if your hospital doesn't have an hourly rounding policy it is still a good idea that every nurse can implement. The patients feel better cared for if they know they are going to be seeing their nurse again at least every hour.

Specializes in trauma/surg.

I am a new grad that is on a unit that is trialing hourly rounding by CNAs. I am finding that they tell the CNA that everything is great, and then call me, even for water....

I think this is overkill and asking too much for the most part. The only way it might be doable is to alternate hourly with the nrsg assts, like previously noted. There is too much to get done during a shift to go from pt to pt each hr. Med passes, tx rounds, MD calling, communicating with other depts, discharges and admits, taking phone calls, charting, handling emergencies, dealing with changes in condition, etc., etc. It all has to get done sometime.

I have never felt that I was neglecting any of my pts just by doing my regular shift tasks, the best I could. It also doesn't hurt to have dependable, good nrsg assts who know how to keep the nurse informed. They are a blessing.

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