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Reduce Falls, Overtime and Lost In the September 2006 issue of American Journal of Nursing, Studer Group's Alliance for Health Care Strategy published its national study of hourly rounding on patients. The results: fewer call lights, less falls, and higher patient satisfaction. Since then, hundreds of hospitals have adopted hourly rounding on inpatients and patients in the emergency department with impressive benefits to the bottom line, too. Covenant Health System, a six-hospital system with 6,000 employees serving west Texas and Eastern New Mexico initiated hourly rounding and individualized patient care in August 2006. Six months later, leaders credit these tools with saving $132,000 in patient falls10, capturing lost charges of $81,600 per year and overtime savings of 220 hours or $1,76411. How does hourly rounding link to capturing lost charges? "The reduction in call lights was so dramatic that it created a calmer work environment for nurses," explains Covenant’s Studer Group coach Dan Collard. "As a result, nurses had more time to be proactive about capturing charges, documenting, and coding." Karen Baggerly, chief nursing officer for Covenant
Health System in Lubbock, Texas has seen the results of hourly rounding
first hand. "We chose a handful of units to pilot hourly rounding
and the results have been remarkable," Baggerly explains. "What
I enjoy most is hearing from the nurse leaders and nurses themselves
about the real wins: reduced call lights, fewer falls and reduced
incidences of pressure ulcers. This tactic supports our desire to
do the right thing for all the right reasons." What do nurses
at Covenant like best about hourly rounding? "It creates an
environment where our nurses have more time to do what they came
here to do: provide the very best care to our patients," she
adds. |
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