Engaging resident physicians in the design, implementation, and assessment of bedside interdisciplinary rounds

ABSTRACT

Bedside interdisciplinary rounds (IDR) improve teamwork, communication, and collaborative culture in inpatient settings. Implementation of bedside IDR in academic settings depends on engagement from resident physicians; however, little is known about their knowledge and preferences related to bedside IDR. The goal of this program was to identify medical resident perceptions about bedside IDR and to engage resident physicians in the design, implementation, and assessment of bedside IDR in an academic setting. This is a pre-post mixed methods survey assessing resident physicians’ perceptions surrounding a stakeholder-informed bedside IDR quality improvement project. Resident physicians in the University of Colorado Internal Medicine Residency Program (n = 77 pre-implementation survey responses from 179 eligible participants – response rate 43%) were recruited via e-mail to participate in surveys assessing perceptions surrounding the inclusion of interprofessional team members, timing, and preferred structure of bedside IDR. A bedside IDR structure was created based on input from resident and attending physicians, patients, nurses, care coordinators, pharmacists, social workers, and rehabilitation specialists. This rounding structure was implemented on acute care wards in June 2019 at a large academic regional VA hospital in Aurora, CO. Resident physicians were surveyed post implementation (n = 58 post-implementation responses from 141 eligible participants – response rate 41%) about interprofessional input, timing, and satisfaction with bedside IDR. The pre-implementation survey revealed several important resident needs during bedside IDR. Post-implementation survey results revealed high overall satisfaction with bedside IDR among residents, improved perceived efficiency of rounds, preserved quality of education, and value added by interprofessional input. Results also suggested areas for future improvement including timeliness of rounds and enhanced systems-based teaching. This project successfully engaged residents as stakeholders in system-level interprofessional change by incorporating their values and preferences into a bedside IDR framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Bedside interdisciplinary rounds
• COVID-19
• graduate medical education
• interprofessional collaboration
• interprofessional communication
• interprofessional education

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the interprofessional teams at Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center who worked hard to make these rounds a possibility and a success, Colorado University IMRP residents for their valuable input, and RMR VAMC hospital leadership for supporting the initiative.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2023.2176471.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Program for Academic Clinician Educators (PACE) from the University of Colorado Department of Medicine.

Notes on contributors

Cole J. Buchanan

Dr. Cole J. Buchanan is a Cardiology Fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. He completed his internal medicine residency training at the University of Colorado in June 2022. He has a long-standing interest in improving patient care through interprofessional collaboration.

Eric Young

Dr. Eric Young is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He works clinically as a Hospitalist at the Rocky Mountain VA Regional Medical Center and is the Director of the VA Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship. He is passionate about medical education and interprofessional collaboration.

Katarzyna A. Mastalerz

Dr. Katarzyna A. Mastalerz is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She is a hospitalist, a clinician educator, a mentor and coach in the Health and Society and the Professional Identity Formation Curriculum, and an advocate for interprofessional communication and collaboration.