My unit has recently started a "Visitor Committee" that deals with visitor issues, and we are working on making some consistencies with our visitation/staying the night policies. Currently our visiting hours are 9a-9p (Until the meeting, I didn't even know we had hours...I work nights, and there are always visitors hanging out all night)
We're trying to find out from other nurses what their suggestions for the guidelines would be. The categories we've come up with are: 1) Comfort care & the dying patient 2)Low stim & sedated/intubated
3)Alert and oriented pt, whether they are on the vent or not. We tried to make the categories as simple as possible. Obviously, there will be patients that don't fit into these categories, and also, the individual nurse will be the deciding factor on visitors for a pt. We are attempting to come up with guidelines to fall back on, and to find some consistency in all the craziness of our unit. Some nurses limit visiting to 2 visitors for 10 minutes of the hour, some let 10 people stay all day. What are your suggestions?
I think that the visitors have to stay whit there relathed.but not so long(sorry about mu english is not good).30 min is ok 2 times in day but in night the patient nead rest. in our wars they can stay from 12.30 pm to 13.00 pm and from 7.30 pm to 8.00pm
Is good for them and for the patient
Ok this is from Bg
Maya
This was the amount of visitation I had in the Critical Care Unit (1 day as CCU patient plus 1.5 days in CCU as a regular patient; the hospital was full). I also had a short visit from my minister, and from a lay leader belonging to my parents' church. It was the right amount of visitation for me.
The lay leader only stayed for 1 minute, but it was long enough. I was really impressed that he made the effort to show up when we did not even know each other (my parents and I go to different churches). It's the thought that counts, not the length of stay.
With regards to phone calls, what we usually do is if there are a lot of people calling in for information about the patient, then we would have the family assign a person to be their point of contact. When other people call, we would direct them to that specific family member then. When it comes to overnight visitors, sometimes you have no choice and you have to let them stay. Some family members come from out of town and don't know anyone in that city and thus have nowhere to stay. If that's the case, then you have no choice but to be accomodating, meaning give them a couple of pillows and direct them to the visiting area. The next day what I usually do is ask social worker to help find cheap hotels within the vicinity of the hospital.
This is a very important topic, because it seems to be universal to hospital nursing.
While I believe that families do make a difference, I find that in ICU familiy members suck up a HUGE amount of time that should be given to the patient,whether it be numerous phone calls, or repetitive questions. There is also the simple fact that no matter how you stress the need for a visitor to be "quiet and don't disturb him" , they simply CANNOT resist holding Mothers hand, talking to her or answering that ringing cell phone.
"Just one minute " is an often heard plea that somehow always turns into half an hour. Multiply that by a large family, and in my hospital there often
20+ "main" family members; and you have a patient that gets no rest.
I find it hard to believe that patients said they valued having thier family in ICU. I hardly remmber a patient that can even RECALL anything ABOUT thier ICU experince, until after the tubes were out, thier blood pressure was stable, and they and I were all glad to allow visitors into the room.
Families need to see thier loved ones, of course. For limited 5-10 minute periods at a time. Unless someone is dying, no family members should spend the night. They have families/needs of thier own, they need sleep to be able to get through the stress. I always tell our families that they need to prepare for the caregiving that comes later, and their loved one will not benefit if they too become ill from becoming rundown. Our families need to trust us that we will be vigilant, they don't have to stay to insure it.
"f someone calls asking about a patient, my canned reply is "They are resting quietly." If they press for more information, I tell them it is against federal law for me to release over the phone the information they are requesting and refer them to the family. However, if they provide me with the predetermined password (personally, I don't ask them to provide it over the phone; either they know there is a password or not - some on my unit will ask for the password directly), I'll answer their questions as best I can."
How does this figure into the HIPPA laws? I don't remember any mention of passwords. I agree that immediate family should be able to get the basic updates (no change, resting quietly, improvements, etc); but at the same time I don't want any legal trouble!
mshultz
250 Posts
This was the amount of visitation I had in the Critical Care Unit (1 day as CCU patient plus 1.5 days in CCU as a regular patient; the hospital was full). I also had a short visit from my minister, and from a lay leader belonging to my parents' church. It was the right amount of visitation for me.
The lay leader only stayed for 1 minute, but it was long enough. I was really impressed that he made the effort to show up when we did not even know each other (my parents and I go to different churches). It's the thought that counts, not the length of stay.