The project was initially implemented on one of the Acute Care units, 3- Surgical, in February 2022, followed by two other Acute Care units in March 2022. Before beginning the pilot, physicians, nursing staff, unit administrative assistants (UAAs), and unit leaders were educated on the rounding process. The physician initiated this process daily by notifying the UAA that they were ready to begin rounding. The UAA then broadcasted to unit staff that the physician was prepared to start rounding, and bedside rounding began with the charge nurse and the physician. The nurse manager would round with the attending if the charge nurse was unavailable. Rounds were conducted utilizing the validated PATIENT Tool (Herrin, Mestas, Reynoilds, & Sturdivant, 2020):

• P: Plan of care
• A: Anticipated Discharge
• T: Tests/Diagnostic Results
• I: Issues or concerns
• E: Explanation
• N: Nurse Feedback
• T: Thank the patient and encourage questions.

The implementation of nurse-physician rounding yielded positive results. The pre-implementation patient satisfaction score for nurse communication on the pilot unit was 81.6 and 88.5 for physician communication. In June 2022, nurse communication scores rose to 88.0, and physician communication scores rose to 90.4. There was also an improvement in the overall patient satisfaction score for the Acute Care Units and staff satisfaction with the nurse-physician rounding process. As a result of these exciting results, this project has been presented to other hospitals within the Houston Methodist System, and an abstract has been submitted for presentation at a national conference.