Open or restricted visitation in ICU/CCU

lady_jh_98 · Mar 24, 2005

Most hospitals have restricted visitation hours in ICU. I work at 2 facilities; they both have 30 mins visitation hours 4 times a day. Hope this helps a bit

justgoofie · Mar 25, 2005

I know in the ICU I work in is closed to all visitors and phone calls 6-8 am and pm. allows for a smooth transition between shifts. also discourages after 11pm visitation. of course exceptions for familys of pt's expected to die at any time. otherwise it suppose to be 10 mins per hour or the nurses discretion. most allow longer visitation with the understanding we may ask them to leave if interfering with their loved ones care.

zambezi, BSN, RN · Mar 25, 2005

The CCU that I work in has pretty open visitation. We are only "closed" from 630-800 both morning and night becuase it is our change of shift. I don't mind our policy because visiting is pretty much up to the RN working with the patient. Families must call back and ask to come in...though if they walk in we are pretty good about stressing how important it is to first call back. In our "patient and family guide to ccu" it disucssing the fairly open visitation policy but does state that the RN has the final word. We also stress that depending on what is going on with the patient or in the unit that the family may not be able to come back. I am pretty open with visitation and I always let the family know that the next nurse may not allow them in the unit as much...I haven't seen too many issues with the policy that we have but it is one of the first things that I discuss with families when I meet them. I am also a newer RN so have never worked in a closed unit...I would prefer it to be up to me than set hours...

barefootlady, ADN, RN · Mar 25, 2005

Restricted visitation is the rule here. Sometimes a nurse will allow family to say past the 30 minute time if the patient is about ready to go to the floor, the unit is quiet, and there are no other visitors, but not generally.

lee1 · Mar 25, 2005

Open visitation is the rule where I work. However, we have 4 different types of surgical ICUs----trauma, neuro, open heart (2) plus MICU, CCU, PICU, NICU. There are some limitations. The surgical OHS one has a phone outside which the family calls through. Thus if it is not a good time for visitation they are told to wait in the waiting room. The medical ICUs are more open and only have 1 restriction for a small period of time at the 7pm change of shift which most families do not adhere to.

Yes, the biggest part of the problem is those nurses who do not give any form of information to the families ----we do have a card that offers information----phone number to call, only 2 visitors at a time (which is the biggest problem), no children under 12 unless OK with the primary RN---another big problem. Then, the families run rampant and when finally a nurse suggests the minor restriction they are resentful.

SOOO, sometimes our peers are our worst enemies in this regard. The visiting rules/information card should be given at the very beginning and would alleviate most problems with proper communication to the closest family members.

We do allow unrestricted time in the case of acutal impending death, especially for those that are DNR

altomga, ADN, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN · Mar 25, 2005

The ICU's that I work in have restricted visitation. The first one starts at 1030 and the last is at 2030. there are 15min visitations q2h. Not to say the nurses don't allow some to stay a little longer, back if the pt is going to die, and we allow them back if the patient was just admitted at night (after we get done with what we have to do...)

The patient is in the ICU where they are obviously very sick...the families tend to get in the way of me caring for the patient or they cause problems by looking at other patients even stepping inside the rooms..I've even had one try to feed a patient that was on the vent with a trach, post-op GOP..WHY??? they said it was b/c they were hungry!!!! WTF!! It sounds mean of me to say this, but we all know it is true.

HisAlone · Mar 30, 2005

Both of the ICUs that I have experience with have restricted visitation but I do have a strangely humerous story to share regarding the open trauma ICU that my brother was in up in December. Now you must understand that my little brother is GORGEOUS and has more charisma than I think that anyone should be allowed to have (LOL). When I first arrived at the scene (late at night) I was suprised that I was able to whip right in an open door and right on into his room without even checking in with the nurses. But when his nurse realized that I was there and who I was she pounced on me to make up a short list of visitors. Apparently that day there had been nearly 100 visitors for him out in the hall, fighting like a pack of dogs over a bone. They asked me if he was a rock star :-) While we were standing in his room discussing this an odd gentleman walked in and started snapping pictures of my brother lying in the bed just out of a coma on a ventilator. Needless to say the nurse reared up like a moma bear and chased him out, screaming at him like a banchee. Until baby bro was stabilized enough to transfer to MedSurg they had to lock the door and station a security person to screen visitors. Please understand that the only reason I can laugh about this is that after hours of trying to ascertain the frantic pleading my brother repeatedly attempted to articulate past the ET we finally realized that he was demanding a cheeseburger.

diddoms · Apr 5, 2005

I've worked in 3 teaching hospitals in Melbourne Australia. It is our custom to have what you would call open visiting. We limit to 2 visitors per patient, but people can visit 24/7. Having said that we stingly encourage relatives to go home and get some rest. We encourage 1 contact person per family who is the spokesperson for the family. They are the only person to be put through to ICU telephone, however soemtimes this doesn't always work. A big part of our job is talking and reassuring family. We have a holistic approach that whilst our duty of care is to the patient, so long as this is not compromosided by visitors we will let them in. Do we keep them waiting?. Yes often, but people are pretty understanding on the whole. Because they see us working so much they can see how busy we are.

Regards

Candidnt · Apr 6, 2005

We have just recently started open visitation in our newly refurbished (*cough cough*) unit, and to be honest, I think it's disastrous. It's made a generally chaotic area even more so, we've had problems with noise, thefts, and the like.

The only times we ask that people attempt to refrain from visitation is during change of shift report times, and even then people come wandering in and out.

As to the last post of designating a specific contact person who can call for info, that never seems to work in any of the places that I have worked. Everybody from the corners of the earth seem to call and attempt to ask questions about patients. It is disruptive and confusing. Either it's because soembody doesn't understand what the other said (they need to ask the other for clarification) or they need to improve their own communication (one begins to think that families are in the business of talking, but often not to each other).

I personally favor a return to restricted visititation [after all, patients (and we as well) tend to tire out more quickly than family members], no night visitation except under specific circumstances (new admit, death imminent, etc). If you've guessed, I work nights; as far as the phone calls go, I wish we just had an automated recording that said "the ICU desk is not staffed at this time (it wouldn't be a lie most of the time; we often don't have a secretary); please call back during normal business hours (then again, a hospital's normal business hours are 24/7). I guess there's no way out of this one.