It’s been just more than a week since Nebraska Medical Center and Bellevue Medical Center relaxed visitor restrictions for inpatients.
“I want to thank all the screeners and the inpatient teams for their flexibility in adapting to this,” said Sue Nuss, PhD, chief nursing officer. “There have been a few bumps and some learnings, but overall, it seems to be going well.”
One element that has caused confusion is the “alternate visitor.”
“It was never our intention to allow two visitors for each inpatient to rotate,” Dr. Nuss said. “If we allowed that, we would be doubling the amount of people entering our facilities.”
Moving forward, Nebraska Medical Center and Bellevue Medical Center are asking patient care teams to only document one, authorized visitor in One Chart and to no longer document an alternate.
“If the need arises for a patient to have an alternate, that’s when we’d like teams to enter a second person in One Chart,” Dr. Nuss said.
As a reminder, anyone who enters the facilities must wear a mask. If you see a visitor who is not wearing a mask, you’re asked to politely remind them to do so, for everyone’s safety.
Learn more detail about the visitor policy.
Current visitation guidelines
- Adult inpatient: one healthy, designated visitor
- Pediatric inpatient: two healthy, designated visitors (one at a time)
- Labor and delivery: one healthy, designated visitor
- COVID-19 units: video visitation only; exceptions can be made for end-of-life visits
- COVID-19 Pediatric: one healthy, designated visitor
- Emergency Department: no visitation; exceptions can be made
- Outpatient clinics: no escorts unless required for patient’s safety
- Cancer Center/Infusion: no escorts unless required for patient’s safety
- Outpatient surgery/procedures: no visitation, exceptions can be made
- Outpatient radiology: no visitation, exceptions can be made