Changing face of 'ward rounds' for doctors

There is no single agreed definition of the term ‘medical ward round’.

It can be described as a complex clinical process during which the clinical care of hospital inpatients is reviewed.

It entails: Establishing, refining or changing the clinical diagnoses, then reviewing the patient’s progress. After this, decisions about future investigations and options of treatment are made as well as formulating arrangements for discharge. This information is then shared with the multidisciplinary team, patient, relatives and carers.

Ward rounds are critical to developing rapport and building trust with patients while doctors discharge their duty of care. They also enable all individuals involved to express a shared goal of making the patient the centre of attention.

Significant advances in diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities over the past few decades have created a complex modern hospital environment. This calls for a review of the traditional ward round model that are predicated on the premise of a single team being responsible for the care of a patient, from admission to discharge. This is no longer the case.

Further still, the traditional ward round, which took place perhaps once a week, also needs to be replaced by a newer model which makes room for more frequency - sometimes twice a day - to reflect the pace of patient turnover.

While the accepted ward round practise is thought not to have changed much in the last century, things are slowly starting to evolve. Today, physicians’ experiences of a team-based and patient-centered round initiative is seen as teh way to go.

Ward rounds need to be restored to a position of central importance in how we collectively care for and communicate with patients.

Doctors and nurses need to understand the wider impact of their approaches to ward care, whilst managers and the executive board bear a responsibility to protect time and resources, enabling all members of the multi-professional team to prioritise ward rounds.