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Hospitals stop clock for visitors
When it comes to visiting hours, some hospitals say, 'Stop by anytime'
Date published: 5/16/2009
BY JIM HALL Each evening at 8 o'clock at Mary Washington Hospital, a voice on the public-address system tells visitors, "We have reached the end of the visiting day. We ask that visiting be concluded at this time." Meanwhile, downstairs at the atrium entrance, a curious thing is happening: Almost as many people are entering the building as leaving. Visiting hours are over, but family and friends are still arriving to see patients. The parade of after-hours visitors at the Fredericksburg hospital is symbolic of how hospitals have changed their thinking about visiting hours. Many, such as Fauquier Hospital, Culpeper Regional Hospital and the new Stafford Hospital Center, have abandoned strict visiting hours altogether. And others such as Mary Washington, with traditional visiting times, are more relaxed in their enforcement. "As long as a patient wants visitors after-hours, why should we have a restriction on them?" asks Carla Adams, senior director of inpatient services at Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton. The attitude at Fauquier and at other hospitals is that visitors are not a nuisance and can actually speed a patient's recovery. As Dr. Donald Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement once asked, "Who is visiting whom?" Doctors and nurses, not the families, are visitors in patients' lives, Berwick said. Berwick estimates that most U.S. hospitals have liberalized visiting hours in recent years, at least on the medical and surgical floors. Culpeper Hospital, for example, says simply: "Our patients may receive visitors 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Culpeper began its flexible visiting hours in 2007. Fauquier started in 2006. Stafford Hospital opened three months ago with its own version of open visitation. "We had the opportunity to open fresh and new," said Cathy Yablonski, administrator. "We decided that this was something important." PROTECTING PATIENTS Open visitation usually means that if patients are willing and able, they can have as many visitors as they want, whenever they want, and for any length of time. Fauquier, for example, has recliners in each room that double as makeshift beds if visitors want to stay the night. An important qualifier is that patients must be up for company. If patients are too sick or tired, visitors may be asked to return later.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 5/16/2009
VCU was great
(posted by
jaeshuan
, May 16, 2009 7:56 am)
they did not restrict visitation in any way during my son's stay in the PICU (pediatric icu) and the doctors there ARE COMPETENT, something you cannot say about any hospital between here and Fairfax. (Fairfax hospital does have competent doctors, the highest salaried on the eastern seaboard.. go figure you get what you pay for.)
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