Direct hospitalist teams typically function with an attending, either working alone or with advanced practice providers (PAs, NPs). The workflow varies with each attending.
In order to best prepare for virtual rounding with a direct hospitalist team, it is important to reach out to the attending before starting on service in order to clarify which tasks the team members would like to delegate to the virtual rounder.
Virtual rounders on direct hospitalist teams may be asked to perform any of the following tasks:
- Write and update progress notes
- Update the hospital course
- Prepare discharges
- Update families
- Contact outpatient facilities to obtain documents or information relevant to patient care
- Contact consultants
Direct hospitalist teams rarely use the hand-off to track to-dos as each team member usually functions and likes to keep track of their tasks independently.