Date of Award

Spring 4-25-2016

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Abstract

To improve patient care, the ICUs of the six Sacramento Sierra Region hospitals of Sutter Health conduct daily interdisciplinary rounds. The rounding process in these hospitals is not standardized or efficient and wide variation in time spent was observed in site assessments conducted in January 2016. In response to this opportunity for improvement, an interdisciplinary rounding script was deployed in the six hospitals to test the hypothesis that a script will improve the efficiency of interdisciplinary rounds in the ICUs.

Previously published studies and journal articles were used to support increased efficiency of script-enhanced communication. Results of this study indicate that (1) Implementation of the rounding script by the IDR saves time; (2) Implementation of the rounding script by the IDR saves money; and (3) IDP participants believe that implementation of the rounding script enhances team communication and efficiency.

Background of the Researcher: For the sake of full disclosure, this researcher is an employee of Sutter Health Sacramento-Sierra Region. Rebecca Petrella has worked for Sutter Health since 2010 and is actively involved in the Sutter Health ICU Liberation Initiative. Her role is the clinical data coordinator for the ICU Liberation Initiative and two other patient outcomes improvement initiatives, funded in part by philanthropy grants from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The effects of a script on IDRs in the Sutter Health Sacramento-Sierra Regional Hospital ICUs is a Sutter Health process improvement effort to improve ICU patient care and patient outcomes. The researcher will collect data for this study during the course of her work in the clinical data coordinator role and the data collected will be used for this study, internally for Sutter Health, and in quarterly reports to internal and external stakeholders.

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