Electronic Printed Ward Round Proformas: Freeing Up Doctors' Time

Area of Science:

• Medical Quality Improvement
• Healthcare Management
• Clinical Workflow Optimization

Background:

• Morning ward rounds are crucial for patient care but can be time-consuming for junior doctors.
• Rota gaps and increased workload exacerbate delays during ward rounds, leading to lost working time.
• Inefficiencies in ward rounds impact patient discharge and timely investigations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance the efficiency of morning ward rounds for junior doctors.
• To reduce the time spent per patient during ward rounds.
• To implement and evaluate the impact of electronic and printed ward round proformas.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) principles for quality improvement.
• Introduced electronic and printed ward round proformas.
• Measured average time per patient for proforma completion and during the ward round.

Main Results:

• Baseline proforma writing time: 1 minute 9 seconds per patient.
• Baseline ward round time: 8 minutes 30 seconds per patient.
• Post-intervention ward round time reduced to 6 minutes 32 seconds per patient, an improvement of 1 minute 58 seconds.

Conclusions:

• The implementation of ward round proformas significantly reduced the time spent per patient.
• Improved efficiency allows for earlier patient discharge identification.
• Freed-up junior doctor time facilitates faster completion of discharge letters and investigations.