Hospital that bans family members

[paramedic-RN]

Normally I don't mind family members that much however after a recent string of AWFUL, rude, demanding family members I'm feeling a little jaded toward them right now. A co-worker sharing in my frustration mentioned that she used to work in an ICU in Alabama that only allowed family members between the hours of 8-830. I"m assuming that was both am and pm although I didn't clarify. Granted ICU's tend to have more strict visitor policies then other department so maybe the rest of the hospital was different. But I thought to myself 'what a magical place, I would drive out of my way and take a pay cut just to work there.' So that got me thinking, does anyone know of any hospitals more specifically ICU's in and around Austin, TX that have similar visitor policies? Also, what do you think about that?

[singwithme123]

Banning family or significant others is totally against The Joint Commission standards except in certain specific situations. If hospitals are certified by TJC, they are likely moving away from "visiting hours".

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

I work in the PACU and we generally do not allow visitors back in the PACU unless it's for pediatric patients, if the patient is holding in PACU because they're waiting for a bed, or if we move Phase 2 to the PACU area because there are only a few patients left.

The ICU at my hospital is a locked unit so people have to push a button to alert the front desk, and then the secretary alerts the nurse who has the final say on whether it's okay for patients to have visitors. I do my best to not enter the ICU from the main entrance, otherwise stupid dumb family members will follow me without alerting the front desk as they should. I do wish the ICU had stricter visitor controls as in only allowing 2 visitors at a time unless a patient was dying, or having blocks of time where visitors were not allowed. I frequently borrow ICU rooms to recover patients and sometimes family members wander into empty rooms or rooms where I have PACU patients recovering. That's not cool.

[ArmaniX, MSN, APRN]

We have visiting hours. Soon we will be going to "open visitation" with the exception of the hours of 6 to 8 am/pm. We only allow at most two visitors back at a time.

[ScrappytheCoco]

I worked at one place where all visitors (with the exception of ED) were not allowed to visit from 6p-830p or 6a-830 due to shift change. They would actually make an overhead announcement reminder every day. Glorious.

[Princess Bubblegum]

Technically we have visiting hours but they are not enforced--unless it's for the patient's safety/sanity, then we can go "Oh, visiting hours are over, buh-bye!" Our ICU kicks out visitors during shift changes, which I think is entirely appropriate. No visitors ever in PACU--they can stay with them in pre-op and walk right up to the red line painted on the floor before the PACU, and they can see them once they're out of PACU, either in short-stay or on the nursing unit.

[Neural]

I know that "visiting hours" is a pipe dream, but just I wish our hospital had limits as to how many family members can be in a room at one time.

Jeez we have them sleeping on the floors sometimes, a few at a time. 8-15 in a room during the days sometimes. Constantly crowding the patient. Making demands to staff. Prying into medical details and pitching fits when we pull the HIPAA card. Kneeling and praying, oblivious to us, when we're trying to do transports and cares. Talking at all hours of the night. If you kick them out of the room, they'll just stand in the hallways and converse loudly, bothering other patients. Etc.

If I get into it with them about inappropriate behavior and end up calling security to have people removed, nobody wins, and the patients are upset, despite the fact that I had their safety and best interest in mind.

Its safe to say that family members do far more harm than good. Dealing with them is easily my least favorite part of the job.

[OBwonKnewbie]

This is probably not popular opinion, but I do agree with OP and Neural to a degree. I think health care moving towards the customer service model has hurt us in ways we can only begin to imagine. Speaking from my own experiences only, I think the general public view nurses like wait staff. The public knows all about patient satisfaction surveys and that translates to "we can get whatever we want from this place because they need our good score." Family is often in the way of providing personal care, and I too have encountered many rude family members that don't care at all about being in my way. Don't get me wrong - I don't mind family members that are respectful of my job and duties. But family members sending me on drink runs (for them, not the patient), fighting with me over policies like how many people can be in the delivery room, opening the door and coming in whenever they please even though very personal patient care is still happening, or crowding the patient's bed to where I have to constantly excuse myself to do a simple check on mom and baby is really quite ridiculous. I equate it to this. ...say you were a lawyer. If I went in your office and literally threw everything on your desk into the floor and played loud music when you were trying to talk on the phone...that's what it feels like to me. It makes everything I have to get done that much harder. I get upset with ignorance. For instance...when the patient and her room full of visitors are told that the baby needs to stay on the warmer after his bath to warm up so he doesnt get cold stressed/hypoglycemic and then I come back 5 min later and find baby in someone's arms half swaddled.....I've had enough. It's just a total "eff you" and lack of respect for how things need to be done. And yes, this is after they are educated on why we are doing things the way we are doing them. I'd never go to the mechanic and throw his tools around or get in his way while he is trying to fix my car. Would you? Don't get me wrong, I think visitors and families can do awesome things to promote healing, it's not all about the medicine....I really do like to be hollistic. But I'm just tired of the "we know this hospital has to make us all happy and so we are doing whatever we want because we can" attitude. Ok, done ranting :-)

[ArmaniX, MSN, APRN]

I don't allow family to treat me like wait staff. Generally if they ask for coffee or juice I refer them to our cafeteria which is always open.

I made the mistake once of offering a family member coffee.. it in that same instance became a request for me to bring back 5 coffees with sugar / cream for the visitors while really the unstable patient in the bed was my priority.. when I came back and was asked if had "forgotten" their coffees.. I lied and said the machine was broken. That coffee machine was "broken" until I left that unit

[OscarTheOwl]

I work in a prison hospital, visiting hours are never:)

[sjalv]

I worked at one place where all visitors (with the exception of ED) were not allowed to visit from 6p-830p or 6a-830 due to shift change. They would actually make an overhead announcement reminder every day. Glorious.

My unit does exactly this. And we are allowed to personally ask the visitors to leave if they do not in response to the overhead announcement.

[Emergent, RN]

Yeah, let's ban the nearest and dearest from their loved one's side because they annoy us. We'd all appreciate that when those we care for are ill.