One Hour Rounding

Sounds great in theory but may be a bit impractical. I would love to see each of my 6 and 7 pts each hour but with dressing changes, baths, ambulating and paperwork, especially on at least a few pts each hour my time becomes so limited. I do try to see all my pts at least every 2 hours which is more achievable.

The idea is to the nurse rounds every 2 hours and the aid rounds every 2 hours alternating so someone is rounding on the patient every hour.

At my hospital, have what they call the "three P's" for potty, position, and pain. The nurse is to round at the top of the hour and the CNA at the bottom of the hour, so the pt will see someone every thirty minutes and we are to ask about these three things. Doesn't work like this at all because there is so much else going on that you just can't be everywhere all at once. It is just impractical and a nuisance to the pt that is trying to rest and sleep.

We did do this on the night shift, when I was training and I continued with it, as did all the "oldies but goodies". It seems that as we got a big wave of new nurses who eventually were able to relieve us oldies from the privilege of the night shift, the "habit" of hourly rounds was given up, as they shopped online, watched movies, scrap-booked, etc.(small rural hospital with skeleton staff of 4 on average at noc). Don't take it as criticism...things have just really changed from 15 years ago.

i was taught to do it in school by my preceptors. i was taught to do it by nurses at my job. it's a good idea. you never know what those patients are up to at night. i worked on a medical/geri ward for 5 years. heck, we usually rounded every 30 minutes, no matter how crazy it was (not if we were in the middle of a code or something, but you get the idea). i had one person fall out of bed and break a hip once. i learned my lesson. i do frequent rounds.