Who Speaks First? Promoting Senior Resident Autonomy on Family-Centered Rounds: A QI Initiative

Graduated autonomy is fundamental as trainees transition to independent practice. Family-centered rounds (FCR), the leading model of inpatient rounding in pediatrics, is an opportunity for trainees to demonstrate their competence in leading a health care team, which is an entrustable professional activity for all pediatric residents. At our institution, senior residents (SRs) at baseline performed at a novice level on the basis of the Senior Resident Empowerment Actions 21 (SREA-21), a validated tool that is used to assess SR autonomy during FCR. Our objective for this study was to increase the median percentage of SREA-21 domains in which SRs perform at a competent level from 38% to 75% within 6 months.

Researchers observed 4 FCR encounters weekly and calculated SREA-21 scores after 2 weeks on the basis of actions promoting SR autonomy performed by the SR-hospitalist dyad. The primary outcome measure was the percentage of SREA-21 domains in which the SR achieved a competent score on the SREA-21. We used the model for improvement to identify key drivers and test proposed interventions using serial plan-do-study-act cycles. Interventions included creation of unified inpatient SR expectations, introduction of a SR-hospitalist pre-FCR huddle, auditing of FCR interruptions, and direct feedback to the SR-hospitalist dyad after FCR. Run charts were used to track SR and hospitalist scores on the SREA-21.

After multiple plan-do-study-act cycles, there was special cause improvement with a desirable shift upward in the centerline to 100%, which correlated with the project's interventions and surpassed our goal.

Using quality improvement methodology, we improved SR autonomy during FCR, as measured by the SREA-21.