A Study of Bedside Versus Hallway Rounding for Neurology Inpatient Teams

This study will evaluate the efficacy of bedside rounding and compare it to hallway and conference room rounding on the neurology ward service at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). The neurology ward service consists of two teams, each with 10-15 vascular neurology and general neurology patients. The teams perform daily attending rounds.

Each team consists of an attending physician, a senior supervisory resident, two junior residents, several rotating residents and interns from other departments, medical students, as well as a physician assistant who alternates daily between the teams. Neurology attendings spend two weeks at a time on a team.

During a two-week attending rotation, we plan to designate one of the teams as the "bedside rounding team" and the other team as the "hallway rounding team", which will serve as the control group. The bedside rounding team will carry out patient presentations at the bedside, with a focus on the patient, while ensuring nursing involvement in each patient's room. The hallway rounding team ("the usual method") will present patients outside of the patient's room, without an added emphasis on nurse participation. Halfway through the two-week rotation, the team designation will switch in a crossover fashion, so that the initial bedside rounding team will become the hallway rounding team, and vice versa. Our planned study period is Monday through Friday for a consecutive 6-8 week period, and we anticipate including about 150-200 patients in our study.

To evaluate staff educational experience, patient and interprofessional communication, and clinical care outcomes of these two rounding approaches, we plan to survey patients, resident trainees, attendings, and nurses on both teams. For collection of data, a student observer or research assistant familiar with the study purpose and methods will accompany a neurology team during weekday morning rounds and record data about the composition and timing of rounds.

Eligible participants include adult patients and providers (nurses; physicians, including residents and attendings; and ancillary providers) involved in the inpatient neurology service at BWH. Patients whose primary language is English will be included in the study with notation of this feature. Observations will focus on activities of the physician providers. Surveys for medical education will involve physician participants who give consent. Surveys of patient care and communication will involve patients and nurses who give consent.