Hourly Rounding / Walking Reports

[patwil73]

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

[SassyMamma]

Our hospital does hourly rounding. I work nights on a very busy surgical floor. I usually only have 5-6 patients. The pct assigned to me covers all the even hours, while I (or the RN) covers all the odd hours. It works great, has cut down on call lights AND falls. The only complaint that I have heard from patients is that we are "always" in the room.

[Pudnluv, ASN, RN]

We just implemented hourly rounding and bedside report about a month ago. I love the bedside report because now the oncoming nurse gets out of the lounge right away instead of sitting back there for 1/2 hour. The hourly rounds are no big deal to me. I was always taught to do that anyways, and the only difference is now I sign a sheet when I'm in the room. I work nights on a very busy telemetry/oncology floor and usually have 9-10 patients a night. I've noticed that a lot of the nurses on my floor are more stressed about signing the sheet then actually doing the hourly check. The sheet is just a tool to remind you that you have to check on the patient. If you think, OMG I didn't sign the sheet, you will go in and see your patient. That's the point of hourly rounding....to check on the patient and let them know you are available for them. The truth is that you may not get in there hourly, sometimes it's actually more like every 1 1/2 hours for me. But the point is that I make a point to go in as often as I can. We were having a problem with too many nurses hanging around the desk, call lights constantly going off and our fall rate astronomical. Call lights are way down now, patient satisfaction has increased and so far our fall rate is declining. It definitely helps that our NM has her finger on the pulse of the unit and understands that there our times that you just can't be there every hour. But all in all it's working well.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

You have 9-10 patients a night? How do you do it???

[uscstu4lfe]

we are supposed to do hourly rounding, but how is it possible? it's just more paperwork bs to do at the end of your shift.

[Pudnluv, ASN, RN]

You have 9-10 patients a night? How do you do it???

We work as a team. If you see someone drowning, you help and they do the same for you. Things are much better now. Use to be years ago that we would have 3 nurses on the floor at night. Each would have 12 patients, including the charge nurse who also had to watch the monitors plus do all the admission charts. Back then there was also no aide, we were told we didn't need one. So after doing that for years, 9-10 patients is much easier. I learned how to prioritze and organize years ago.

[MrsMommaRN]

we do walking rounds @ shift change. we walk from chart box to chart box and get report. we do not walk into the room and check iv bags etc.

one of the other floors @ my hospital recenlty incorporated hourly rounding. they claim it has helped with pt complaints going down.

my floor is supposed to enforce hourly rounding. we do have our safety checks hourly which i suppose is the same. on my floor you could be in the room every 15 min. and still have the call lights going nuts.