title: Family-centered rounding: can it impact the time of discharge and time of completion of studies at an academic children's hospital?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Family-centered rounds (FCR) involve multidisciplinary rounds at the patient bedside with an emphasis on physicians partnering with patients and families in the clinical decision-making for the patient. Although the purpose of FCR is to provide patient-centered care, an unanticipated benefit of FCR may be to improve time to discharge. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of FCR on time to discharge for pediatric patients in an academic medical center.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively compared the timing of patient discharges from July 2007 to June 2008 (before FCR) versus those from July 2008 to May 2009 (after FCR) on the pediatric hospital medicine service. We further compared time from order entry to study completion on a subset of patients receiving head MRIs and EEGs, studies that typically occurred on the day of discharge.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In our center, before FCR, 40% of patients were discharged before 3:00 pm (n = 912). After FCR, 47% of children were discharged before 3:00 pm (n = 911) (P = .0036). Time from order entry to study completion for MRIs and EEGs decreased from 2.15 hours before FCR (n = 225) to 1.73 hours after FCR (n = 206) (P = .001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  FCR provided a modest improvement in the timeliness of the discharge process at our institution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana joshimur@iupui.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Oshimura
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana.
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Downs
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saysana
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005190:Family; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010358:Patient Participation; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D056164:Teaching Rounds / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Communication; Multi-disciplinary care; Outcomes measurement; Quality improvement