Leadership Rounding

This week we are talking about effective communication through leadership rounding

Transcript

Choehns: 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome back to Leading Nursing Together, the podcast where we explore what it means to lead with heart, purpose, and the impact in today's healthcare world. I'm Michelle Hoen Tanner, c and e, and your host. Today we're gonna be diving into a practice that may seem very simple on the surface, but when it is done with intention, it can completely transform your patient outcomes, staff morale and uni culture. Today we are talking about leadership rounding, a cornerstone of evidence-based leadership development, and a powerful way for nursing leaders to stay grounded in what matters most. Why should we actually round? What is the purpose of it or why is it even important? Let's start with a bigger picture. Leadership rounding connects the nurse leader directly to not only the front line in regards to the patients, but also our staff. When we consistently round, we reinforce standards and expectations. We build trust and transparency. We catch issues early before they become a problem, and most importantly, we show up and we are present and we are engaged leaders. This is a way to build a strong and positive culture for patients. This means their voice is being heard, they feel safe. Valued and cared for, not just medically, but emotionally as well for staff rounding. It's a message you matter. I see you. I wanna help remove barriers so you can do your best work. I am here for you. It's not just about walking through the unit and saying hi. It's about building those relationships, being visible, and actively listening, when done right, leadership, running becomes a cultural accelerator, creating psychological safety, boosting engagement, and directly impacting the quality of care. So how do we begin when we're talking about patient rounding. Of course the most dynamic and driven through evidence is aid it. That is the framework that we use as an acronym to help us communicate purposefully and with clarity about what we are doing. It begins with acknowledgement, having that open. Warm greeting, making eye contact using their name and acknowledging anyone else that might be in the room. Introductions, you should always share not only who you are, but what your role is. For example, hi, my name is Michelle. I'm one of the nurse leaders here. Duration If able to explain how long you're gonna be there for your visit, this might take just a few minutes.Explanation: Clearly share why you're visiting.“I round to make sure we’re providing excellent care and to hear directly from you about how things are going.” This could mean that you're talking about purposeful rounding. This could mean that you are talking about bedside shift report. This a time where you should be looking at their plan of care, making sure those whiteboards are up to date and asking them what they think their plan of care should be. And finally, and most importantly, thanking them. This isn't just thanking them for choosing the hospital. You should be saying stuff like thank you for sharing that information with me. That is really going to help us provide better care for you while you are here. When leaders use aid it, we're doing more than just being polite. The purpose for rounding on the patient is to demonstrate to the patient and possibly the families that the organization is committed to providing quality care. When done consistently, leaders can manage the patients. Experience on the front end as opposed to finding it out later through a complaint letter or a poor service survey. What does effective leadership rounding look like on patients? One begins with setting expectations. When a leader interacts with a patient, they should inform the patient and their family what the goals of the hospital are and how we can meet or exceed their expectations valid, validate the behavior that our employees or our staff should be using to provide quality care. This includes some of the things we've already talked about such as purposeful rounding bedside reporting, and aid it. These show that we are setting the goals, manage up. Our leaders have a great opportunity to reduce the patient's and family's anxiety when rounding by managing up the staff and physicians who are taking care of them, share information about the staff's education, their experience, and put the patient at ease, harvest, reward, and recognition. The leader should take this opportunity to ask them, is there anybody that interacted with you that did a good job? And then reward them for hearing about that. Use closing statements. No Patient contact is complete without a closing statement. This begins with is there anything I can do before I leave? Or telling the patient that the hospital's caregivers do not wanna leave if there's something that you need to be done. Also, communicate with the staff after rounding on the patients. Make sure you give feedback to your staff member on that patient. Recognize. Reward any behaviors that the patient has identified and make sure that if there is something that you didn't see, you need to coach and mentor that staff member to continue to use the behaviors that we are expecting out of them. And then finally, service recovery. When we do fail in meeting the patient's expectations. They do need to hear apologies from us. We don't need to say that we are sorry someone did something. We need to say we are sorry that we did not meet your expectations, and then take action to see how we can resolve not meeting that expectation or. If we are unable to meet the expectation, explain to the patient maybe why we can't meet that expectation, and hopefully they will have a better understanding about that. We're building trust and competence. We're modeling for our team what compassionate structured communication looks like. When we talk about rounding, we have to make sure that we are not only communicating, but also looking for feedback. That is another important part of patient rounding. We need to make sure they understand that we want them to have a positive experience when at the hospital, so this allows us to take a minute to be able to understand what's going on with that patient and their needs. Also remember, this gives us an opportunity to also ask if there's anybody that they would like to highlight in regards to their care. That is also a huge component to it. Next, I would like to talk about rounding on our employees. The listening to lead and what does this look like? This is where leadership rounding truly becomes transformational. When we round on our team members, it's not just checking in, we're actually investing in them. The purpose for staff rounding is to understand what is working, what is not working, and what we need to do as leaders to support them. It is our opportunity to build. That safe environment where our nurses, our techs, and all other ancillary staff feel heard, valued, and supported. Here are some key elements of effective employee rounding. You start with gratitude. Thank them for what they are doing, asking them truly. How things are going today. Don't make it quick and walk away. Make sure that when they tell you something's going on, you're following up with it. Here are some five essential questions that you can ask. What's working well? Do you have the tools and equipment that you need to do your job? Is there anything we could do better? Is there anyone I can recognize for doing an excellent job and what can I do to support you? These questions help uncover both barriers to care and also opportunities to recognize excellence and when we act on what we hear. Whether it is fixing a broken piece of equipment or giving kudos in a huddle, we are sending a powerful message, which is, you spoke, we listened, and we acted. Staff rounding also gives us insight into the workload, morale, and team dynamics. And of course, those burnout, warning signs. It allows us to intervene before problems escalate and build a shared sense of ownership within the unit's culture. In short, rounding humanizes leadership, it says, I'm here for you, not above you, and in today's hide pressured. Healthcare environment. That is the message we all want to hear. Closing thoughts are leadership rounding isn't about adding more to our plate it's about doing the most important thing with purpose and consistency by being visual, listening deeply, and following up on what we heard, we create an environment where both patients and staff thrive. Here's your action to take this week. Pick one shift round on three patients and three team members. Use aid it and the five questions and follow through. When we round with intention, we lead with compassion, and when we lead with compassion, we are nursing together. Thank you for listening and like always lead with your heart. I appreciate you and all of the hard work that you do every single day.