Visitation during RSV season

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Specializes in Level 3 NICU 17 yrs, Neo transport 13 yr.

do any units out there have a change in their visitation policy during the rsv season? we do not as of yet, but our new medical director came up with this concern, so now we are investigating what other units do. thanks.

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Specializes in PICU, ICU, Transplant, Trauma, Surgical.

Yepp, as soon as it is "RSV SEASON" our visitation policies change. During RSV season, siblings visiting the unit must be over the age of 8, and all other visitors must be over the age of 12 (this is standard in non-RSV season).

If siblings are to visit (ages 8-12), their parents must fill out our "Sibling Visitation Form" each day. It is a page-long questionnaire in Re: to day-care, immunizations, illness, s/sx of illness. Initially, one of our NNPs has to "ok" the visit if anything deviates from "no", but after the baseline our unit clerk uses judgment to "ok" visitation or have the NNP "ok" it.

I will try to see if there is the NICU visitation policy on the Hospital's employee website and post.

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Specializes in NICU.

As far as I know, we do not change our policy regarding sibling visitation during RSV season. Our policy is that if they are under the age of 12, they must be a sibling in order to visit. Each sibling is allowed to visit twice a week for 20 minutes each visit. Each time they visit, the parent must fill out a form stating that they haven't been exposed to anybody else who has been sick, been sick themselves..... this permission slip gets scanned into the babies chart each and every time so that we can keep track of when they each visit.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Our ICN (and well-baby) visitation policy changes during RSV season. Nobody under 4 is allowed at all, and 4-11yo's must be siblings, and then only for an hour on the weekends. Nobody is allowed in with any sx of illness, and they must be fever-free x 24-48 hours (depending on what illness they've had).

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

We don't change, but we are thinking of it. We do refuse people visitation if they have a cold (not parents, they mask).

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Our unit restricts visitors to parents and grandparents only during RSV season.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

We didn't used to, until about 3 years ago when we had a severe RSV scare. I think we did have a couple of confirmed cases and many suspected though the tests were negative or questionable (apparently the rapid RSV screen has a high false positive and most of the RSV cultures we took were negative). I remember having to give my entire assignment of 4 feeder-growers a Synagis shot that night (they were symptom-free but all kids in the unit got Synagis that day). They hated me!

Anyway, after that nasty episode we raised our normal sibling visitation age from 2 to 3, otherwise visitors have to be over age 12. But Oct. 1st through April 1st there are no visitors under age 13 sibling or not.

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Specializes in NICU.

We just went to RSV season visitation, with no children under 12 years allowed.

The rest of the year we allow brief sibling visits under 12 years on weekends only.

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Specializes in NICU.

Our unit wouldn't do this in a million years. We are Family Centered Care taken to a slightly scary extreme. As in we barely even enforce contact isolation with the families. And by barely I mean pretty much don't. Anyone attempting to enforce what limited visiting rules we do have (as in parents + 2 at bedside only, anyone other than parent or grandparent must be accompanied by a parent) may not even get backup from management.

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Hi from Down Under- we are now into the end of spring here. This year we have many cases of RSV. Or visiting policy is strict parents/ grandparents and siblings. Only 2 visitors at a time ( we had a huge problem with ESBL in the unit so the visiting policy became very very strict - been free for 4 months but the policy hasn't been reveiwed). Most of the RSV was tracted back to a grandparent or siblings, we found that the parents were great ( they would were masks or not visit until they were much better):welcome:

If people realised how siick these kiddies get I think they might think twice before bring a snotty nose child into the unit.

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Specializes in NICU.

In our unit, during non-RSV season, non-sibling visitors need to be 16 or older. Siblings can visit for 15-20 minutes as appropriate if they have no signs of illness and are up to date on vaccines.

During RSV season, siblings who match the above can only visit once per week. The exception to this is a multiple...e.g. the twin who has already gone home....can visit anytime.

Synagis is routinely administered to those who meet the criteria during RSV season.

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Specializes in NICU.

Nobody under 18 is allowed on the unit until late next spring. If a baby is being removed from support, exceptions are made and rightfully so; but even then, kids are limited to the family room. We've already had a couple of cases of RSV on our unit, and boy, these rules are enforced.

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