Promoting a Sleep-friendly Environment by Minimizing Overnight Room Entries

Despite its importance in illness recovery, the sleep of hospitalized children is frequently interrupted. This quality improvement intervention aimed to reduce overnight room entries by minimizing unnecessary interventions.

This study occurred at a university-affiliated children's hospital on the hospital medicine services from March 26, 2021, to April 14, 2022. The intervention included order set changes and the implementation of a rounding checklist designed to address factors most closely associated with sleep disruption and overnight room entries. The outcome measure was overnight (10 pm to 6 am) room entries, counted using room entry sensors. Process measures reflected the intervention targets (overnight vital sign orders, medication administration, and intravenous fluid use). The method of analysis was statistical process control charting.

After identifying special cause variation, the average number of overnight room entries decreased from 8.1 to 6.8, a 16% decrease. This decrease corresponded with the implementation of a rounding checklist. However, there continued to be variability in average room entries, suggesting a process lacking ongoing stability. During this period, avoidance of overnight medications and intravenous fluid increased by 28% and 17%, respectively.

Implementing a rounding checklist to a broad patient population decreased overnight room entries. However, future work is needed to better understand the factors associated with sustaining such an improvement.