[Chubuti]

Originally Posted by mattsmom81

Wow. This amazed me. Is this common practice now in hospitals?

HOPE NOT EVER !!!

[Q.]

I actually found a camera in my Dad's patient room, though it wasn't hidden and it was just a medical floor.

[kitty=^..^=cat]

Q., we have 2 med/surg rooms with cameras that we use to monitor patients on suicide precautions (we sometimes hold patients on that unit while they're waiting for transfer to a psych facility) or need special monitoring for some reason. The patient or family member is always aware when the camera is on and we have a special instruction sheet that explains that the camera is for monitoring purposes.

Of course we don't have patients like that all the time, so regular med/surg patients occasionally get put in the camera rooms. We only turn the monitor for the camera on at the patient or family request - occasionally a patient's family will ask us to turn on the camera when they aren't there. They sign an acknowledgement that basically says that having the camera on is no guarantee of safety, fall prevention, elopement, etc. and that we aren't responsible if something does happen. Those requests HAVE prevented some pretty bad things from happening...

Maybe that's why there was a camera in your dad's room.

[Marie_LPN, RN]

Our ICU rooms have cameras in them. I forgot all about that.

[Q.]

Originally Posted by kitty=^..^=cat

Maybe that's why there was a camera in your dad's room.

Could be. It was aimed right at the bed and was obviously there for monitoring the patient; I just couldn't figure out if it was in all rooms or what. Turns out, as you said, only a few rooms have them. He was moved to another room yesterday and that one doesn't seem to have a camera.

Interesting.

[pickledpepperRN]

In California all patients in a critical care unit must be visible to nursing staff. We have two beds that cannot be seen from the nurses station. There are cameras. We turn the cameras off when bathing the patient, on when leaving the room. Only nurses at the desk can see the little screens.
There is an infra red light.
We always tell the patient when admitting them to one of those rooms. I think most forget about it.

Those are the rooms we try to keep empty when the census is low.

[mattsmom81]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

In California all patients in a critical care unit must be visible to nursing staff. We have two beds that cannot be seen from the nurses station. There are cameras. We turn the cameras off when bathing the patient, on when leaving the room. Only nurses at the desk can see the little screens.
There is an infra red light.
We always tell the patient when admitting them to one of those rooms. I think most forget about it.

Those are the rooms we try to keep empty when the census is low.

We do the same here in Texas. Most family members are glad we can watch for safety reasons, but we are careful to allow privacy as well. I have never had a family member complain to be honest...most understand the importance of close observation in ICU.