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

Area of Science:

• Healthcare communication
• Patient safety
• Interprofessional collaboration

Background:

• Lack of ongoing interprofessional communication leads to miscommunications and medical errors.
• Seamless patient information access is crucial for preventing errors and improving safety.
• A shared understanding of information needs among interprofessional teams is currently lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify care providers' information needs from various professional perspectives.
• To inform the development of a tool that supports interprofessional communication and shared understanding.
• To enhance patient-centered decision-making within healthcare teams.

Main Methods:

• Conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 subject matter experts from eight professions.
• Utilized an in-house rounding tool and a hypothetical patient scenario for feedback collection.
• Employed direct content analysis to code interview notes and identify essential data elements.

Main Results:

• Identified 22 additional essential data elements for an interprofessional rounding tool.
• Categorized these elements into six domains: discharge, social determinants of health, hospital safety, nutrition, situation awareness, and patient history.
• Highlighted the need for a tool reflecting diverse professional information requirements.

Conclusions:

• A well-designed, validated rounding tool incorporating interprofessional information needs can improve communication.
• Such a tool has the potential to enhance care planning and decision-making among diverse care providers.
• Addressing information gaps is key to optimizing patient safety and team collaboration.