Timely nurse rounding is considered a best practice to meet patient needs and prioritize patient safety. Regular rounding creates a line of communication between the patient and provider and ensures positive outcomes.
Many hospitals have a policy that providers should check on their patients once an hour. But until recently, it’s been impossible to know when specific clinicians are visiting a particular patient room. Fortunately, through Clean Hands – Safe Hands technology, clinical intervention data is captured and analyzed. This data has two huge benefits associated with nurse rounding: reducing the risk of falls and improving patient satisfaction.
Patient falls are a huge risk and financial burden for hospitals. Around 1 million patients fall every year in American hospitals , and each fall resulting in injury is quite costly. Frequently, falls occur because a patient has not been visited by their provider in a while and attempts to go to the bathroom without assistance.
Most hospitals expect providers to visit patients every hour, but without clinical intervention data, it’s impossible to know if that’s happening. Frequent visits are the best way to prevent patient falls and utilizing technology to gain insights around patient visits is invaluable.
The image below is the Clean Hands – Safe Hands Fall Prediction Algorithm. This data, available in real-time, informs unit leadership which patients, if any, are at risk of falling and should be checked on.
The Clean Hands – Safe Hands system can send alerts to the unit leader, notifying them if a patient is at high risk of falling. The patient’s provider can then go check on the patient and assist them with any needs, preventing a fall. With this data, it’s possible for management to take proactive action and reduce patient falls.
It’s no secret that regular rounding improves the patient experience. Patient satisfaction is becoming a greater priority for hospitals as surveys like HCAHPS determine reimbursement. One of the core components of patient satisfaction is responsiveness and communication. Long wait times not only make patients unhappy, but they can also cause harm.
Using data to gain insights into nurse rounding is an important part of keeping patients satisfied. With a system like Clean Hands – Safe Hands, managers have access to real-time data around provider visits.
Below is real Clean – Hands Safe Hands customer data showing visits to a patient’s room during a day shift.
In this situation, Nurse Susan is the primary caregiver of the patient. While she checked on the patient fairly frequently, it was certainly not every hour. In fact, Nurse Susan only visited the patient about half the time she was supposed to according to her hospital’s rounding policy. Nurse Susan is likely an excellent provider, just busy, however the gaps in between visits can lead to patient frustration and ultimately low satisfaction.
It’s important for facilities to have these insights to be proactive about nurse rounding. Clean Hands – Safe Hands not only provides customers with this data, the system breaks it down and looks for abnormalities and patterns allowing leadership to take action immediately. With real-time insights, regular nurse rounding can prevent falls and long wait times, ultimately keeping patients safe and satisfied.
If you would like to learn more about how Clean Hands – Safe Hands helps with nurse rounding, contact us.
