Using Schwartz Rounds in Healthcare: Overview and Best Practices

Schwartz Center Rounds are a trademarked forum hosted by participating facilities for clinical and nonclinical staff to encourage a culture of compassion. Informally referred to as Schwartz Rounds, topics within these structured discussions are meant to allow people to debrief the emotional and psychosocial toll of working in healthcare.

If you’re interested in implementing these research-backed meetings to provide space for the wellbeing of your teams, we can help. In this article, we’ll answer some common questions about these rounds and provide examples alongside best practices for implementation.

The Schwartz program is an excellent way to care for your caregivers, which helps enable them to provide patients with the best possible experience, even in the face of heightened emotions and stress.

What Is a Schwartz Round?

Schwartz Rounds originated from Ken Schwartz’s 10-month battle with advanced lung cancer. The diagnosis was a shock to him and his young family as he had no associated risk factors and had lived a healthy lifestyle. During his treatment, it was the connection with his caregivers that gave him strength and comfort when he needed it most. He founded the Schwartz Center as a method of ensuring that healthcare professionals and employees were given a space to nurture the compassion required to “make the unbearable bearable.”

The rounds’ format is fairly straightforward. They’re typically hosted once a month for an hour at a time and include catering or the provision of food. A panel member opens the forum with a prompt (such as, A patient I’ll never forget, among others), discussing past experiences from their perspective. Trained facilitators then lead open discussions where participants are asked to share their thoughts or experiences.

What Are Schwartz Rounds’ Benefits?

The benefits of Schwartz Rounds training and implementation are research-backed and multifold for participating facilities. Because they’re open to all members of the healthcare team (including nonclinical staff), many report greater cohesiveness and understanding of others’ healthcare roles after participating in rounds. Additional benefits include:

• Increased compassion for patients and colleagues.
• Greater insight into work-related feelings and responses.
• Decreased isolation and stress.
• Improved communication and teamwork.
• Dismantlement of harmful hierarchies.
• Improved confidence and sense of employer support.
• A more open, healthy workplace culture.

Who Makes Up the Rounds Team?

One of the first steps in developing your Schwartz-affiliated rounds program is identifying a coordinating team. Though there’s no limit on facilitators, training participants does have an associated cost, so it’s best to stick to the recommended number of panelists.

Schwartz Rounds Examples

These rounds are meant to celebrate and encourage caregiving that is concerned with a patient’s spirit in addition to their bodily needs. This can help them avoid compassion fatigue and burnout as workplace stressors compound. Here are some real-life examples of how participation has allowed staff to unburden themselves of their workplace-related psychosocial strain.

Impact of Rounds: Example 1

A nursing team was able to explore the extent of their secondary trauma after caring for a dying infant they’d never forget. This was not a typical experience for their unit, and they struggled with making sense of the tragedy while caring for the family — including the young brother of the patient whose birthday was spent holding his dying sibling. The nurses were able to share their feelings during rounds, finding support for their grief in a space that was safe, supportive, and appropriate.

Impact of Rounds: Example 2

During a particular forum, patient transporters were invited to discuss which aspect of their jobs they find the most difficult. They answered that the final transport (or, taking a deceased patient to the morgue) was particularly challenging. After this revelation, the rest of the participants gave the transport team a spontaneous ovation, giving them recognition and support for handling this difficult — largely unseen — and often emotional task.

The Takeaway:

Both these examples illuminate how the rounds allow staff at all levels to seek support. They also demonstrate how impactful it can be to share and reflect on experiences, providing insight and fostering a more compassionate culture among colleagues.

Implementing Schwartz Center Rounds: Process Considerations

Hosting these rounds requires a healthcare membership with the Schwartz Center (facilities in the UK may receive training and support from the Point of Care Organization). The Schwartz Center provides a membership roadmap, which includes these initial steps:

• Review all pertinent information.
• Submit an online inquiry form.
• Participate in an informal webinar and continue to review informational materials.
• Complete a readiness checklist.
• Fill out the pre-agreement intake form.
• Return the signed membership agreement with any additional required documents and payment (listed as an initial $8,500 training fee, then $2,995 annually per site).

Once membership has been approved, the Schwartz Center training involves six steps:

1. The Kickoff Cohort is a 1-hour synchronous meeting that sets expectations.
2. Core Training requires 3-4 hours of asynchronous online training for committee participants.
3. Training Debrief Cohort is a 1.5-hour synchronous meeting that identifies facilitators and debriefs current takeaways and next steps.
4. Planning and Preparation requires 2-3 months of committee meetings to address content and logistical requirements of the first forum meeting.
5. The First Schwartz Meeting is an hourlong forum that initiates the facility’s regular rounds.
6. Initial Meeting Debrief lasts about one week and includes a one-hour synchronous meeting with the Schwartz Center member experience advisor (MEA) to go over the success or growth points of the first forum.

Making the Most of Your Schwartz Rounds: Best Practices

Although you’ll have the full support of the Schwartz Center Foundation backing your new rounds initiative, here are some best practices to ensure you make the most of the Schwartz program.

1. Ensure Executive Officer Buy-In

To secure the financial commitment and permanence that are critical to the program’s long-term success, stakeholder buy-in is key. Make sure that executive-level healthcare leaders understand the necessity of these rounds as ongoing methods of caring for staff and securing workplace stability.

2. Engage Staff Early in the Consideration Process

Before aligning your organization with the Schwartz foundation, gather feedback from staff and educate them about the purpose of the rounds. This will help garner the interest needed to make early meetings a success and provide your organization with the data needed to refine the program to your particular needs.

3. Make the Most of Your Member Experience Advisor

Once you’ve committed to this style of rounds, make the most of the resources provided by the Schwartz Foundation as you’re getting started, including your MEA. They’re supposed to help make sure your program’s a success, so debrief with them and circle back to questions as often as they come up.

4. Invest in Ongoing Rounds Advertising

Whether it’s catering food options that actually entice your staff to attend or investing in promotional materials that alert staff to when rounds are happening, it’s important to drive early interest. Generating buzz around your latest staff wellbeing initiative will help drive attendance and contribute data to reform meetings while you still have training resources at your disposal.

5. Embed the Program as an Organizational Mainstay

Sustainability and dependability are key to the program’s permanence. So give careful and early consideration to details like meeting place and time. The location and other meeting details should remain as consistent as possible. The dependability of these logistics will help reinforce the dependability of the program itself.

Looking for Other Methods to Cultivate Compassionate Care?

Now that you know the Schwartz Rounds’ definition of how to care for caregivers, you may be curious about other ways to protect your staff from compassion fatigue and burnout. Let IntelyCare remove the guesswork with our expert-backed facility guides and best practice recommendations.