For members of the St. Tammany Health System care team, it’s a return of sorts to pre-COVID normalcy. But for patients at the health system’s flagship St. Tammany Parish Hospital, it’s nothing short of a blessing.
Earlier this month, doctors and nurses at the hospital returned to Structured Interdisciplinary Bedside Rounding – or SIBR rounding – which is the fancy name for a process in which an inpatient’s entire care team visits them in their room daily to discuss and coordinate their care.
That includes their doctor. It includes their nurse. It includes a case management professional, a representative from the hospital’s pharmacy and a social worker.
For Dr. Robert Oubre, a hospitalist, there are no downsides to SIBR rounding, which, among other things, he said increases efficiency and boosts communication among hospital colleagues.
There’s also the convenience of having all of his patients grouped on one unit rather than scattered throughout the hospital, which means he’s typically only a few steps away should an urgent need arise.
More importantly, however, is the patient perspective.
“Patients just love it,” Dr. Oubre said. “Perceived lack of communication among the care team is a frequent complaint by patients. SIBR rounds show that we are a team and are communicating with one another. This makes patients feel at ease.
“Also, they get to hear their plan of care discussed over and over again, so they know exactly why they are in the hospital and what we need in order to discharge them.”
The goal is to get everyone, including the patient, on the same page quickly and easily. The end result, Dr. Oubre said, is better care for the patient and boosted confidence in their care plan and their care team.
On a recent Tuesday morning, Dr. Oubre and his six-person SIBR team checked in on 15 patients, all on the hospital’s General Medicine Unit. Each visit took about five minutes and started with Dr. Oubre going over the latest details of the patients’ treatment.
Then, following an established order that remains consistent from patient to patient, the other members of the team took turns contributing their observations or questions.
When they were all done, the patient was given the opportunity to ask questions of their own.
In all, the 15 visits took just more than an hour.
The SIBR rounding philosophy isn’t exactly new to St. Tammany Health System. Before the COVID-19 pandemic took root in spring 2020, it was being used at the hospital but had to be suspended in the interest of infection prevention.
For a time, they were conducted from a conference room, but to hear Dr. Oubre describe it, that’s no replacement for in-person, face-to-face visits.
“This new way of structuring bedside rounds ultimately benefits the patient,” he said. “It benefits the care team as well, but even those benefits ultimately benefit the patient. That’s a win-win, as far as I’m concerned.”