The impact of residents sitting at the bedside on patient satisfaction during team rounds.

Objectives: Patient satisfaction ratings are a priority for academic medical centers. Sitting during patient encounters has been recommended as a "best practice." ¹ A prior study showed that hospitalists had higher-rated communication skills when sitting compared to standing at the bedside during rounds. ² It is unclear whether the same is true of resident-led team rounds.
Methods: We performed a cluster-randomized crossover trial assigning 18 internal medicine residents to sit or stand at the bedside during rounds.
Results: A total of 347 patients were surveyed to assess physician communication skills. Standing residents received higher ratings than sitting residents on 2 of 5 survey items and rounding duration did not differ. These results differ from prior work that suggests sitting is superior to standing ^2-6 .
Conclusion: We suspect that one rounding member sitting, while all others stand, is not enough to impact patients' perceptions. These results suggest that initiatives to optimize patient satisfaction on resident-staffed units should be focused elsewhere.
Practice Implications: Patients do not have better impressions of physician communication skills when one team member is sitting and the rest are standing.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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