Improving Interdisciplinary Communication on the Medicine Progressive Care Unit

Abstract

Effective interdisciplinary communication has been shown to reduce healthcare cost, improve staff satisfaction, and improve patient care. However, since the Medicine Progressive Care Unit (MPCU) accepts patient admissions from multiple medicine disciplines, it has led to unstructured interdisciplinary communication. The purpose of this 12-week quality improvement project was to improve processes surrounding interdisciplinary communication on the MPCU through the standardization of bedside rounding procedures. To evaluate the success of this project throughout implementation, staff satisfaction, patient length of stay, and number of adult rapid responses/codes were examined. The project resulted in a rounding tool utilization rate of 14.97% and a 7% increase in overall staff satisfaction. These findings have the potential to financially benefit patients and the organization, while encouraging the nursing staff to be leaders at the bedside. Potential benefits of the project are clear, but the project also uncovered the continued work needed to further define structured bedside rounding and its impact on interdisciplinary communication.