Team•rounds
Team•rounds are an important part of Stanford Health Care's (SHC)
commitment to outstanding patient care. Team•rounds are daily
interdisciplinary meetings during which representatives from all
disciplines of the care team gather to discuss treatment plans for the
patients under their care. The goal of team•rounds is to improve the
patient experience from admission through discharge by:
- Ensuring that the entire interdisciplinary team is working
toward a common care plan.
- Identifying and addressing
potential barriers to patient care transitions and discharges.
As the primary coordinators of patients' daily plans of care, nurse
involvement is critical to the success of team•rounds. Resource nurses
facilitate or co-facilitate team•rounds meetings, update the team on
pertinent nursing updates, document these interdisciplinary
discussions in the patients' charts, and, most importantly, discuss
care plans with bedside nurses, patients, and patients' families.
Depending upon the patient's needs, participants may include the following:
Key discussion points for team•rounds meetings
- Goals for the day
- Estimated discharge date (EDD)
- Does patient still require telemetry?
- Discharge
needs?
- Mobility progression?
- Barriers to progress or
discharge?
- Is the patient or family aware of the care
plan?
- Does the patient have transportation arranged for
discharge?
- Follow up on yesterday's discussion and assign
follow up items for the day's discussion.
Based on the agreed-upon care plans, bedside clinical nurses:
- Ensure that tests and procedures are completed in a timely
manner.
- Help patients understand what to expect between
admission and discharge.
- Educate patients and their
families in preparation for discharge.
- Identify patient
concerns and/or potential delays and escalate these to the resource
nurse or medical team as appropriate.
Patient satisfaction outcomes:
Since launching team•rounds, SHC has seen improvements in each Press
Ganey question correlated to smooth discharges and interdisciplinary
coordination, including:
- Extent felt ready for discharge.
- Speed of discharge
process.
- Staff worked together to care for me.
Staff anecdotes
"It's great having all the disciplines in the room at the same
time. We all have the opportunity to know the plan of care first
hand and deliver a consistent message to the patients and there seem
to be a lot fewer "last minute" surprises and delays. It's
really been very exciting to be able to sustain this high level of communication."
-Martha Berrier, RN, patient care manager, D1
"Team•rounds has had a positive effect on collaboration and
teamwork with other disciplines. This in turn has created safer and
higher quality patient care, has improved patient outcomes, and has
increased staff professionalism and communication."
-Karen Brandt, RN, Assistant Patient Care Manager, C2
"...By attending [team•rounds], not only can we learn the plan
for patient discharges, which [helps with] planning pharmacy
workflow, we can also perform daily profile reviews and catch or
address any outstanding medication issues without having to page
each individual MD. Team•rounds allows me to interact with staff
from every clinical discipline. Before team•rounds, I would rarely
(if ever!) have interactions with them …I now have a better
understanding of each person's role in the goal of providing optimal
patient care."
-Sean Carlton, Pharm D
"I find team•rounds invaluable to the work I do. These rounds
provide an opportunity for multiple disciplines to gather and
discuss patient care in a more holistic manner. In addition,
team•rounds afford a brief opportunity for team building, as these
rounds are often times the only instance in which multiple services
involved in patient care are able to meet face to face."
-Jennifer Smart, MSW
"Team•care is an excellent forum for members of the medical
team to streamline discharge planning."
-Michaela Sullivan, MSN, RN, Float Case Manager