Dealing with ICU visitors

we usually do the same..but usually they call back in about 10 minutes...something about an "hour or s" just isnt comprehendable to some people!!

then it keeps being an hour, from the LAST time that they called.....this comes under the heading "we teach persons how to treat us"

We set up appt. with our family members. It is our policy to tell them that we will call them every morning at 0600 and every evening at 1800, and we do, not matter what, we let the family pick one person to be the call person. When we explain this to them we remind them how if people are calling all of the time, then it takes away from our time with the patient ( an the second patient if we have one), we also let them know that we will call them when there is any kind of condition change right away. Since implementing this policy we rarely ever get a call from family, except for the occassional frantic mom who had a bad feeling, and this is okay with us. When we call them we make sure to note any changes and the plan for the day, this helps to alleviate a lot of fears.