Study Summary:

Testing the Feasibility and Acceptability of a Toolkit to Guide Healthcare Providers and Patient Family for Family Participation in ICU Rounds / To assess the feasibility and acceptability of employing a toolkit for patient and family-centered ICU rounds.  | Current guidelines recommend that family be invited to attend ICU bedside rounds as a way to improve communication and increase satisfaction. However, there is little guidance as to how participation can be optimized so that family members feel valued as a team member while respecting the vulnerabilities of having a critically ill loved one. Recent literature has used the term ‘family-centered rounds’ when families receive an invitation to attend and are provided with a summary of information discussed and an opportunity to ask questions. This approach was largely modeled after a traditional ICU rounds framework without patient or family member input. The drawback of such an approach is that the attending family member may not be comfortable or aware of the opportunity to adopt the roles of the patient voice and co-decision maker in this setting. In our observational multicenter study of adult ICU rounds, we identified six foundational elements of family-centered rounds related to decision-making and communication:

• Invitation
• Orientation
• Active Engagement
• Summary
• Questions
• Communication Follow Up

Principal Investigator: Selena Au

Additional:

Communication in the ICU Toolkit