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Multidisciplinary rounds are the key to improving communication among all disciplines on the treatment team and facilitating collaboration on the patient’s plan of care, says Jean Maslan, BSN, MHA, CCM, ACM, managing consultant for Berkeley Research Group, with headquarters in Emeryville, CA.
“Rounds are a time to get all of the disciplines on the same page so everyone will have the same message to patients. Having daily multidisciplinary rounds should increase quality metrics and increase patient and staff satisfaction,” she says.
Multidisciplinary rounds remove the silos in which clinicians often operate because everyone is talking to each other, says Peggy Rossi, BSN, MPA, CCM, a retired hospital case management director who now is a consultant for the Center for Case Management.
“In today’s healthcare environment, it’s important for all the disciplines to act as a team and collaborate on patient care and moving patients safely through the continuum. They make the discharge process smoother because everyone is aware of the barriers to discharge and works to remove them,” she adds.
Rossi suggests that hospitals develop two types of rounds: daily rounds that focus on length of stay and a safe discharge, and complex rounds for high-risk patients with multiple comorbidities and complex needs.
The daily rounds should be quick and efficient and include a one-to-two minute discussion of each patient, including what happened in the last...