Purposeful hourly rounding is a care model that organizations utilize all over the world to ensure patients receive timely, consistent, and proactive care.
An intentional patient rounding process should positively impact call lights, falls, and patient experience scores. Even in our age of digitalization, we still find that many hospitals rely on pen and paper to document these rounds.
Using feedback from our clients, we have compiled a list of 3 reasons why organizations switch to digital documentation of purposeful rounds.
1. Improves Nurse Communication HCAHPS Dimension
A digital rounding tool ensures patients receive consistent care by the core provider team. When patients trust that a nurse will be back on a consistent schedule to proactively address their needs, their perception of nurse communication improves. Survey providers like Press Ganey report that when hospitals improve their nurse communication HCAHPS dimension, several other domains like responsiveness, pain management, and overall rating show correlated improvements.
2. Increase Accountability
You’ve implemented hourly rounding at your hospital. But how do you know if staff are following best practices? Are they visiting every patient every hour? Are they asking all of the right questions? A digital rounding tool increases nurse accountability through easy documentation of every patient interaction, issue resolution tracking, and teamwork centered goals. Pen and paper based systems leave nurse leaders in the dark and make accountability difficult to measure.
3. Data Aggregation
Data and metrics are only as relevant as the information they track. A digital purposeful rounding tool provides critical insight on the day-to-day interactions that nurses have with patients. Better yet, data from digital rounding tools is pertinent and actionable. Decision makers can determine what best practices are really working for their patient populations and adjust as needed. Think about it, what better place to gain insight on patient satisfaction than from the nurses interacting on that level every single day.
