Required data elements for interprofessional rounds through the lens of multiple professions

ABSTRACT

The lack of a proper system for ongoing open interprofessional communication among care providers increases miscommunications and medical errors. Seamless access to patient information is important for care providers to prevent miscommunication and improve patient safety. A shared understanding of the information needs of different care providers in an interprofessional team is lacking. Our purpose is to identify care providers’ information needs from the perspective of different professions for communication, shared understanding about the patient, and decision-making. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 subject matter experts representing eight professions, including dentistry, dietetics, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, and social work in a 465-bed academic hospital at a large urban Midwestern city. We used an in-house rounding tool presenting physicians’ information needs and a hypothetical patient scenario to collect participants’ feedback. Interview notes were coded using direct content analysis. We identified 22 additional essential data elements for an interprofessional rounding tool. We categorized those into six domains: discharge-related, social determinants of health, hospital safety, nutrition, interprofessional situation awareness, and patient history. A well-designed validated rounding tool that includes an interprofessional team of care providers’ information needs could improve communication, care planning, and decision-making among them.

KEYWORDS:

• Hospitalization
• interprofessional communication
• teaching rounds
• continuity of patient care
• patient care planning
• computerized medical record systems

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge our participants and Danielle E. Robinson, who assisted with creating the figures.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was not supported by any funding.

Notes on contributors

Haleh Vatani

Haleh Vatani is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical and Health Informatics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Himanshu Sharma

Himanshu Sharma is currently the director of Data Platforms team at University of Illinois at Chicago and pursuing a Ph.D. in Health Informatics (Data Science) at the same university.

Kamel Azhar

Kamel Azhar, MD, is a Clinical Informatics fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Karl M. Kochendorfer

Karl Kochendorfer, MD, is Assistant Vice Chancellor and CHIO at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health System Sciences. He is also a Board Certified in Family Medicine and Clinical Informatics.

Annette L. Valenta

Annette Valenta, DrPH, is Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Karen Dunn Lopez

Karen Dunn Lopez, Ph.D., MPH, RN, is an Associate Professor at the College of Nursing, University of Iowa.