Ward round template: enhancing patient safety on ward rounds

Ward Rounds

to right heart failure, and is therefore a sign of impending disaster for many patients with common heart and lung diseases. We have known for a long time that hypoxia constricts lung vessels and causes pulmonary hypertension in acute experiments; this response may be important in disease as well. There are many theories about the mechanism of this hypoxic response, none of them generally accep...

Developing a ward round checklist to improve patient safety

Checklists have been shown to improve care and reduce morbidity and mortality in the healthcare setting.[1] Their application in safety-critical industries outside of medicine continues to offer a strong argument for their application to medicine.[2] The daily in-patient medical ward round is a complex process and includes multiple potential risks to patient safety. This project aims to evaluat...

Please Don’t Disturb! Ward Round in Progress: a QI project on reducing the number of interruptions during ward rounds

What's wrong with ward rounds?

If you have ever been a hospital in-patient, you will know what it means to look forward to ward rounds and to fear them at the same time. On the one hand, you lie there hoping for the doctors to come round because you will hear news of your progress, and perhaps whether you can go home. On the other hand, you almost certainly know from experience that the encounter with doctors will be brief a...

Ward round--a football injury?

Introduction A boy aged 12 presented with pain in his left leg and inability to walk. He said that his symptoms started 6 months previously after a fall while playing football. He had increasing pain in his left leg and for the last 3 months he had a discharging sinus from his tibia. On examination he was apyrexial and appeared poorly nourished. Pulse was regular at 90, BP 110/70 mmHg, with nor...