Purposeful Hourly Rounding on the Medical Unit
Graduation Date
1-2012
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Nursing
Thesis Advisor
Eira Klich-Heartt, RN, MSN
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to show that the implementation of purposeful hourly rounding in a clinical setting will effectively decrease call light usage thereby improving patient satisfaction. Rounding of patients will be done hourly by CNA’s and RN’s. During rounding, pain, toileting, Positioning and personal needs of the patient will be addressed. In a spot analysis of half the unit (MUB) the total numbers of call lights were 3362 for a 30 day period. The median calls per day were 112 which averaged out to 4.67 calls per hour. A review of what need each call light represented showed that 68.64 % of call lights were initiated to fulfill at least one of the 4 Ps (Pain, Potty, Positioning or Personal needs) that could be preempted with purposeful rounding. n order to fulfill the needs of the patient, an RN spends approximately 4 minutes per call light. This equates to 2.49 hours in an 8 hour shift are used in just answering call lights. Call lights represent the unmet needs of the patient and the purpose of this study is to proactively eliminate most call lights through purposeful rounding in an attempt to free up nursing time and increase patient satisfaction.