Since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) started providing public visibility into quality and experience metrics, prospective residents, family members, and acute referral sources are able to access skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) records online. Such visibility encourages SNFs to focus more on improving staff efficiency, clinical outcomes, and enhancing the resident experience.
One successful strategy Acute Care Providers have implemented to enhance patient experiences has been purposeful patient rounding. For example, many hospitals are performing leadership rounds on residents as part of both quality and experience initiatives. SNFs should take notice, as this concept is spreading across the care continuum. Similar to the acute counterpart, resident rounding is a proactive, systematic, nurse-driven, and evidence-based intervention that helps anticipate and address patient needs on a routine basis.
The Benefits of Resident Rounding
A coordinated patient rounding program helps SNFs identify and close gaps in resident communication and experiences. By encouraging communication throughout the resident stay, rounding helps to build trust, reduces anxiety, decreases call light frequency, and alleviates care team stress and patient uncertainty.
Rounding can be performed by a single care team member or by a multidisciplinary team. Regardless of the approach, rounding allows for resident needs to be addressed quickly, which improves engagement, satisfaction, compliance, and outcomes. The challenge for most organizations comes from tracking issues to resolution and reporting on the collected information from rounds. To address these challenges, digital rounding applications can streamline processes, aggregate data, and identify actionable improvement opportunities.
How Digital Rounding Works for Skilled Nursing Facilities
The integration of digital resident rounding into the clinical workflow can help quickly close the loop on resident issues, leading to enhanced resident and family satisfaction. Real-time information capture, alerts and notifications sent to appropriate staff, and feedback systems then provide actionable data to drive long-term improvement.
Resident rounding, when done purposefully, can be an effective strategy to improve key performance indicators such as:
- – Resident Outcomes
- – Readmission Rates
- – Resident Safety such as Reduced Falls
- – Resident and Family Satisfaction
Additionally, resident rounding can provide better transparency and accountability across the organization. Skilled nursing facilities should also think about their QAPI program and how this process can help facilitate performance improvement and action. By implementing rounding strategies now, SNFs will be set up for long-term success under regulatory changes and narrowing provider networks.
To learn more about the benefits of digital rounding, read the recent article ‘A Shift to Digital Rounding: 4 Reasons Your Facility Should Get Rid of Paper and Pen Rounding’.
