J Gastroenterol Hepatol Endosc | Volume 2, Issue 5 | Research Article | Open Access
Elina Mattila*, Juhani Sand, Pekka Collin and Kaija Leino
Division of Surgery, Gastroenterology and Oncology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland
*Correspondance to: Elina Mattila
Fulltext PDFObjectives: The ward round is an essential function on hospital wards. The pressure on health care to develop and streamline practices calls for the development of hospital ward rounds as regards the content, division of labor and organization. According to the patient-oriented mindset, ward round practices and their duration should be defined by the patient's needs. The purpose here in was to investigate the duration of the patient-specific ward round session at various phases of the session with surgical and non-surgical gastroenterology patients. Additionally, the study examines the association of patient- and organization-related factors with the duration of the ward round session at various phases of the session.
Methods: The research data was collected by observing the duration of the ward round with gastric surgery and non-surgical gastroenterology inpatients (n=224) in a Finnish University Hospital.
Results: The overall duration of the ward round session for gastric surgery patients was 6.54 min and for non-surgical gastroenterology patients 8.02 min. As a rule, patient-related factors did not affect the duration of the session. The only factor affecting the duration of the session was whether or not the patient had undergone surgery. Organization-related factors includes the number of physicians attending the ward round, the size of the patient room and the day of the week were associated with the duration of the ward round at the various phases thereof.
Conclusion: Ward rounds take up a considerable amount of the daily and weekly working hours of physicians and nurses. The purpose of the ward round in today's medical practice should therefore be reconsidered. When it comes to progress in the patient’s treatment or the duration of the hospital stay, does a traditional ward round yield benefits to the extent that it should be implemented in its current format in the future as well? It is known that the ward round is a daily and often hectic event in a hospital, whereas the patient-specific session of a ward round remains brief, while a considerable amount of time is spent on the round at the organizational level. It should be contemplated whether a traditional ward round, in its current format, indeed yields benefits in terms of progress in the patient’s treatment or the duration of the hospital stay to the extent that hospitals should keep implementing the practice in the future.
Ward round; Gastroenterological patient; Duration of ward round
Mattila E, Sand J, Collin P, Leino K. Patient and Organization-Related Factors Associated with the Duration of Ward Rounds for Gastroenterological Patients. J Gastroenterol Hepatol Endosc. 2017;2(5):1029.