hourly rounding

I want to know how different hospitals do hourly rounding. I currently work on a telemetry unit and manage 6-7 patients a day, doing am care, dressing changes, wound care, medications ( which each patient usually have 10-20 pills and IV's), patient teaching (medication, discharge instructions and anything else they need), computer charting, written charting and speak with various departments and md's. I also need to accompany any patient that goes off the floor for testing. This is in an acute care hospital. We are expected to do rounding on 16-17 patients, not our own, we are scheduled once a day. I know this doesn't sound like a lot but take into consideration all the other things that you are doing and the fact that you still do rounds on your own patients all day and the fact that it can take close to an 1 1/2 to do those daily hourly rounds. How does your hospital want you to do hourly rounds?
In my facility we are expected to fill out a hourly rounding sheet, checking with the time we enter the room, assess for pain, noise, make sure the call light is in place, etc. I personally feel this sheets are a waste of time, just because I sign a sheet, and put a couple checks on it, doesn't mean I provided good patient care. Good patient care in my eyes is safe nurse to patient ratio. I believe any nurse who works in a busy hospital setting or any setting for that matter wants to provide good care, and does their best. Together we try to find that happy balance between patient care and charting. Patient care is top priority, but charting is just as important, cause if you don't chart it you didn't do it. Why give us another thing to chart on? Because it looks good to the public's eye? I believe happy nurses make happy patients, not a hourly rounding sheet.

We also have hourly rounding logs. Some staff member is supposed to be in each room once per hour. This usually happens at the top of the hour. Usually the nurses take the odd hours and the aides take the even hours. More times than not, the CNA will actually sign off on EVERY single hour all day long. I cannot imagine how our CNAs really do this with up to 15pts each.

Ohh I don't even want to get started on this but here I go anyhow. OP, I could have written your post, and now they have us started on the ridiculous task of hourly rounding for the entire floor. First of all..if every RN is supposedly responsible for his or her own patients and should therefore be rounding on them, why is it necessary to assign every nurse thewhole floor on an hourly basis? It is a colossal waste of time, and one more meaningless piece of paper. The idea very obviously was not created by a bedside nurse, but by management in yet another of their brilliant brainstorms to make the "customer" happy. Now I've never been a hospital patient but it only takes some common sense to recognize that what would make a patient happy is not a new and unfamilar face interrupting them every hour meaninglessly, but a hospital stay with nursing care that happens in a timely manner. Now we are so busy running around the floor for no reason, my patient has to wait 20 minutes to see me instead of 10. In theory..cause unlike management, I have my priorities straight. But of course to fix this management would have to actually shell out for another nurse so maybe I could have 5 or 6 patients instead of 8. Which will of course never happen. So give me more paperwork and call it patient satisfaction. Maybe I'm bitter cause of the new management on my floor, coming in out of nowhere and trying to fix problems with answers that have nothing to do with anything and make new problems. Okay..I'm off my soapbox now. Thanx for letting me vent!!

Where I worked nurses were on even hours CNA's on odd hours. Basically anyone that went in the room asked if the patient was in any pain, needed help to the washroom, or anything at all. After that we would sign our initials and the time that we were in the room. Most of the time the RN's would just sign their name at the end of the shift for the hourly rounding throughout the day because they did not want to check on the pts.In my opinion, it helped keep call lights down when everyone was working together.

We have an hourly rounding check in the computer. However, if anything pertinent is charted every hour: vs, pain, ambulation etc. that counts as hourly rounding. When we had a pt fall out of bed, DOH insisted in seeing documentation of hourly rounding!!! I could show them (I am a NM) that the patient had been seen every hour for one reason or another, they accepted this. It is not always "Management decies that..)

We are the same as Noregrets. That is why I chart in the rooms. Shows I was in the room. But since I work nights I do not wake the pt. I just check to see they are breathing rhythmically and that the call bell is within reach. Saved me one night. A/Ox3 lady decided she was going to get up to go pee, even though she knew she was unsteady at times. She was advised (and charted) to call. Well I went to see her and charted I saw her. Exactly 17 minutes later she fell (couldn't hold it and slipped in her own pee). Of course I had to do an incident report. But it was the computerized hourly rounding that saved me. Never felt more confident when it came to a fall. I am very supportive of the computerized hourly rounding. Could cya. We used to have the paper. Did us no good. Not even a part of the permanent charting. Very happy with the computerized way.

Hourly rounding is a good idea only if it can actually be executed!!