open heart visitation

[jetty]

I work in an 8 bed CVICU that has semiprivate rooms with curtains for privacy. The hospital is looking at creating an open visitation for all critical care environments. We currenty have structured visiting but make exceptions when appropriate, I was wondering:

1.what visitations are on other units that care for fresh open heart patients. 2.what is the layout of your unit like (are there private rooms?).

3. Pro's and Con's of the visitation policy.

[Dinith88]

I work in an 8 bed CVICU that has semiprivate rooms with curtains for privacy. The hospital is looking at creating an open visitation for all critical care environments. We currenty have structured visiting but make exceptions when appropriate, I was wondering:

1.what visitations are on other units that care for fresh open heart patients. 2.what is the layout of your unit like (are there private rooms?).

3. Pro's and Con's of the visitation policy.

Our ICU beds are all private

We (in general) have an open visitation policy...and i dislike it

As far as post-op CABG... we've no set policy. What we generally do is after the patient rolls in from the OR, and after we've 'settled' in, we give the spouse or other person (maybe 2 people) a peek for a few minutes (even if still entubated, sedated, etc). Of course if the patient is unstable we may not allow visitors until the situation warrants...as we dont like to freak visitors out. After this initial 'visit' we usually leave it to the discresion(sp?) of the nurse. In general, we ask the family to be considerate and visit onlt for a few minutes every few hours...at least that first day.

This can get a little difficult because the 'other' families are enjoying our 'open visitation' policy...and if the CABG patient's family is insistant, freaked-out, rude, know-it-all-nurse-in-the-family, whatever....you can imagine the headaches that can(and do) arise.

One (of many) reasons why i dislike open visitation...