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. 2021 Apr 8:8:23743735211008303.
doi: 10.1177/23743735211008303. eCollection 2021.

Relationships Between Time-at-Bedside During Hospital Ward Rounds, Clinician-Patient Agreement, and Patient Experience

John T Ratelle  1 , Michelle Herberts  2 , Donna Miller  1 , Ashok Kumbamu  3 , Donna Lawson  1 , Eric Polley  4 , Thomas J Beckman  5
Affiliations

Relationships Between Time-at-Bedside During Hospital Ward Rounds, Clinician-Patient Agreement, and Patient Experience

John T Ratelle et al. J Patient Exp. .

Abstract

Hospital medicine ward rounds are often conducted away from patients' bedsides, but it is unknown if more time-at-bedside is associated with improved patient outcomes. Our objective is to measure the association between "time-at-bedside," patient experience, and patient-clinician care agreement during ward rounds. Research assistants directly observed medicine services to quantify the amount of time spent discussing each patient's care inside versus outside the patient's room. "Time-at-bedside" was defined as the proportion of time spent discussing a patient's care in his or her room. Patient experience and patient-clinician care agreement both were measured immediately after ward rounds. Results demonstrated that the majority of patient and physicians completely agreement on planned tests (66.3%), planned procedures (79.7%), medication changes (50.6%), and discharge location (66.9%), but had no agreement on the patient's main concern (74.4%) and discharge date (50.6%). Time-at-bedside was not correlated with care agreement or patient experience (P > .05 for all comparisons). This study demonstrates that spending more time at the bedside during ward rounds, alone, is insufficient to improve patient experience.

Keywords: clinician–patient relationship; communication; medical education; team rounding.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Physician–patient plan of care agreement.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Nurse–patient plan of care agreement.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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