Visiting Hours

[redwolf]

What are your Critical Care visiting hours? Do you enforce them? Do visitors respect them?

Where I work the posted hours are 10:30a-1:00; 4:30-6:30 and 8:30-10:30. Pretty liberal , I think. Gives the A.M crew time to get organized and the night staff time to do assessments. Obviously we don't ask the families of imminently terminal patients to leave. I think we are quite liberal. We are in an area where, culturally, if one's third cousin twice removed does not come to visit then disrespect is shown.

Personally I don't like to have family in while I am doing an initial assessment because I feel like they speak for the patient... "are you cold" (yes, the visitor is cold) "Are you having pain?" (Mami MUST be having pain).

People become insulted when they realize they cannot spend the night with their loved one (I do NOT mean someone who is near death).

Is this a problem for you? How do you or your unit or your managers handle it?

[HHW2006]

In our ICU visting is open with the exception of shift changes (7:00 - 8:30 am and pm). As nurses we can use our judgement to restrict visiting as needed based on the condition of our patient. I find the open visitation to be a bit much at times, as it is more difficult to make family members understand that sometimes their loved one just needs to be left alone to rest when it is posted right on the door to our unit that they can pretty much visit anytime they want!

[bahamagirl]

We have a locked unit so that every visitor must phone before coming into visit. We don't allow visitation between shift change (0645-0745 and 1845-1945). We also don't allow visitation during rounds in the morning. Is is only two per bedside and immediate family only. We restrict visiting during codes or any invasive procedures since we have a fairly open unit.

[Ophelia78]

We allow 2 primary visitors to have 24/7 access. There are some families that are there quite often, but many who just come daily and then go home and rest. We have restricted hours for all other visitors, daytime only, and not during report time. We ask families if they would like a call between 6a-7a and/or 6p-7p. We have had very positive feedback about the daily check-ins and it seems to reduce family anxiety somewhat. The calls are generally quite brief. We restrict visitors to two at a time, and have a locked unit. A visitor is allowed in at nurse discretion. All visitors must wear a badge. We are a Level 1 Trauma Center in an urban area and get all the gunshots, victims of violence, etc, and have a patient rep in our waiting room 24/7 to enforce rules and manage larger or more difficult families.

[Guest193822]

Working in the SICU/TICU in a military hospital receiving soldiers from Iraq & Afghanistan. The visiting hrs went out the window. They come at all hrs of the day & night. Visiting hrs are 8am-9pm. But with what’s going on the, CCNS has decided to allow the head nurse make decisions & on my ward the direct nurse is in control of it.

If it’s a fresh OIF I allow 2 people outside the door while pt is getting stabilized for about 5mins. While another nurse is explaining what’s going on. Then afterwards it’s 2 people for 15mins when I’m not so busy with the pt. It can get chaotic with family members arriving that I can’t get no work done & can’t even get reach my pt. When all is stable we allow 1 family member spend the night.

It works for our ICU in this time of war.

[ptadvocate81]

Our visiting hours are 6-6:30, 8-9, 12-13, 17-18 and 20-21. They are limited to 4 people at a time and no children under age 14. The biggest problem I have found is with the children. People do not understand that it isn't that we don't want little girl to see her mommy, but that mommy's neighbor in the ICU may have something really, really harmful to little girl's health. I try to show compassion and understanding, but at times it is hard to get your point across without being stern.

[tree22_RN]

our SICU (which also handles trauma patients) visiting is limited to 3 people at a time, 10:30a-11,2:30p-3:00p,8:00p-8:30p, we do make exceptions based on patient condition and family needs. Anyone under the age of 13 has to have special arrangements made which are not regular visiting hours and for only 15 min.

[drenched]

Ours is a locked unit that only unlocks during visitor hours, which are half an hour every odd hour during the day shift.

[gtmoore]

Up to discretion of nurse. Family routinely stays the night with patients.

[nurse4theplanet, RN]

We are switching from scheduled visiting hours to open visitation. It has been quite chaotic so far. Visitors do not respect the nurses right to restrict visitation based on pt condition or the limit to the number of visitors that can come back at a given time. I have seen 10+ family members in the room at one time! Several pleas have been put into management. We'll see how long this lasts. The docs are getting a little frazzled as well.

[angelladyclaire]

Our SICU/Trauma overflow is a locked unit with 4 visiting times daily, 30 minutes each with one hour long visit in the evening. However, it is up to the nurse outside those times whether to allow visitors. There are some day shift nurses who are absolute visitor nazis and will ask other nurses' patients' visitors to leave! If the patient is confused or dying or unusually anxious we will often let a family member stay the night at bedside if the patient's condition permits. Our facility has gone back and forth several times over the years with open visiting, scheduled visiting. It's looking like we're leaning back toward open visiting again.

[babyboomer47]

We allow 2 primary visitors to have 24/7 access. There are some families that are there quite often, but many who just come daily and then go home and rest. We have restricted hours for all other visitors, daytime only, and not during report time. We ask families if they would like a call between 6a-7a and/or 6p-7p. We have had very positive feedback about the daily check-ins and it seems to reduce family anxiety somewhat. The calls are generally quite brief. We restrict visitors to two at a time, and have a locked unit. A visitor is allowed in at nurse discretion. All visitors must wear a badge. We are a Level 1 Trauma Center in an urban area and get all the gunshots, victims of violence, etc, and have a patient rep in our waiting room 24/7 to enforce rules and manage larger or more difficult families.

this sounds like a good compromise to the "open" visiting hours that we are currently using. i also work in a 32 bed med/surg icu and we have been struggling with hour current practice. we keep hearing from management that current research promotes open policy but we have been open far about 2 years and are beginning to go mad. did your unit use any research based evidence to promote this plan? if so would you let me know which journals were used because we are trying to ammend this and i need some quality ammo. i have buy in from the mds which is helpful but if i could produce some documented practice resources please. thank you.