An Integrated Review of Interprofessional Rounds and Their Implications

This paper aims to explore what is known on the effects, facilitators and barriers of nurses’ participation in interprofessional patient rounds (IPR) on inpatient hospital units. Implementing IPR is difficult and seen as controversial, but earlier studies of IPR had shown positive quality of care effects, decreased medical errors, and improved patient safety from communication problems. We wanted to know the state of science in the last five years since we would expect broader implementation. The guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta Analyses directed this integrated review. We conducted a systematic search in the databases Current Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed, PsychInfo, and Embase. Articles were included if they were: (a) a research study published in English; (b) in a peer-reviewed journal; (c) published between 2013 - 2018; (d) the setting studied was an inpatient hospital unit; and, (e) the study involved a reasonable number of nurses per other providers studied. After reviewing 629 titles, abstracts, and articles, a final sample of n = 14 qualitative research studies were used to synthesize findings (See Figure 1 PRISMA). IPR showed positive effects for the hospital units studied, including: (a) improving nurses’ job satisfaction; (b) improving working relationships between physicians and nurses; and, (c) improving patient-and family centered care. Yet, the study designs used have also constrained the generalizability. More studies should implement research designs that account for the various types of biases noted. The findings give preliminary data that could be useful to nursing administrators for improving nurse turnover, engaging nurses in patient care-planning or family advocacy, which could ultimately improve patient and family-centered care.Bachelor of Scienc