Multidisciplinary rounding allows for open and collaborative communication on decision making, information sharing, care planning, and patient safety issues, along with decreasing length of stay, decreasing cost and increasing quality of care.  The information shared during rounds is supplemented by communication at shift changes between the incoming and the outgoing care providers.   This tool will increase autonomy for the practice of nursing on the units and serves to anticipate patient safety and care needs, facilitating a proactive approach to patient care.

Huddles enable teams to have more frequent and brief meetings that have a primarily operational focus.  A huddle consists of  a quick meeting of a functional group to set the day or shift in motion by commentary with key personnel and serves the purpose of informing team members, reviewing work, making plans and moving the team ahead more rapidly. 

Escalating a concern regarding changes in patient conditions is of paramount importance in the health care setting. Timely communication with the right care provider facilitates appropriate treatment and prevents further deterioration. However, face to face communication between the healthcare team throughout the day is not often practical. The need for a well-documented, standardized escalation process that is understood by all healthcare team members, regarding a patient’s condition, should provide role clarification and a realistic timeframe of whom to call.

The SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation) technique provides a framework for communication between healthcare team members that can be used to organize information in preparation for notifying a provider about a change in patient status or needs.  The tool provides a standardized means for communicating in patient care situations, provides nurses and other care providers with guidelines for relevant information to have prepared when phoning or speaking to another healthcare team member, and a framework for presenting pertinent information, appropriate assessments, and recommendations. A significant component of SBAR education encourages the recognition of the expertise of nurses and other care providers to assertively make recommendations to physicians or other healthcare providers, thus facilitating a non-hierarchical structure and vastly improving patient safety (Leonard, Bonacum, & Graham).