I love seeing my doctors and care team every day on rounds,
but I find a big group of people talking about me really scary.
What can I do?
Great question.
Family-centred rounds are when a group of multidisciplinary care providers
move from patient to patient to discuss the patient's daily plan of care.
It's really important that patients and families are part of this process
to provide input and to ensure we're all on the same page.
During the COVID 19 pandemic.
CHEO moved entirely from an in-person and family-centred
rounds to a virtual family-centred rounds process.
We evaluated this virtual rounds process to see
what our patients, families and care team providers thought about it.
During the study, 62 rounds were observed, virtually 35 were observed in-person,
and 104 questionnaires were completed by providers, patients and families.
We discovered that virtual family-centred rounds works.
First, we can easily visualize the steps involved in in-person rounds
by connecting with patients and families in a shared virtual meeting
using tablets which the grand majority found easy to use.
Second, most people felt safer doing virtual rounds during the pandemic.
Most importantly, almost all care team members felt
that virtual family-centred around supported, shared decision making.
And three quarters of patients and families
felt like valued members of their or their child's care team.
Although CHEO has returned to an in-person family-centred rounds process,
virtual family-centred rounds are always available to be used
when needed to provide inclusive and family-centred care.