Reliable and Variable Rounder Care Delivery Model for Nursing Assistants and Patient Care Technicians

Healthcare in its current state often experiences process breakdowns, resulting in dissatisfied patients, disillusioned caregivers, care errors or omissions, and delays in meeting patient needs. Near-misses are often caught, not by standardized processes, but by hard-working caregivers. To reduce these problems, staff at the Donald D. Wolff, Jr. Center for Quality, Safety, and Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (the center) created the Reliable Rounder (RR) and Variable Rounder (VR) Care Delivery Model as a new structure for the work of the patient care technician/nursing assistant (PCT/NA). The goal of this model is to ensure that the right patient gets the right care at the right time, every time, by dramatically redesigning the role of the unit PCT/NA.