Inpatient Quick Reference

Acute/Critical Care

Admission

Rounds

Plan in advance for rounds by:

  1. Engaging the family:

    • Explain how rounds work on your unit and explore their communication preferences. What parts of the rounding conversation do they want to be involved in?

    • What time will they be available for rounds?

  2. Requesting an in-person interpreter. Consider:

    • Does your team or unit need to work with the in-person interpreter for multiple patients?

    • Will other members of your multidisciplinary team need time to work with the in-person interpreter during that visit

    • Units that designate a role that is responsible for this have more success with obtaining in-person interpreters.

When a family is not at bedside, consider calling them with a phone interpreter.

Rounding with Phone or Video Interpreters

Phone and Video interpreters for spoken languages cannot interpret simultaneously. Chunking and turn-taking are required.

MyRounds

MyRounds is only available in English. Explain this to families who use languages other than English and enroll them if they would like to use MyRounds in English.

Overnight

To reduce disturbances to patients and families overnight, communicate the plan to families with an interpreter before they go to sleep. When the plan changes during the night, work with an interpreter. See more details here.

Discharge