ICU Visiting Hour Restrictions Hurt More Than They Help

Guest: Giora Netzer, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health, University of Maryland A few years ago, Julie Rose was racing to the hospital to visit her father who was gravely ill in the Intensive Care Unit. But on the way, she got a call from a sibling that visiting hours had just ended for the day. She’d missed the window. And, as it turned out, she’d missed the chance to see her father conscious for the last time. He passed the next day. There’s a nationwide movement to loosen visitor restrictions in critical care hospital settings. Advocates for giving a patient’s family open access to the ICU say it improves things for both the patient and the family. Not all intensive care nurses or hospital administrators agree, however.