Visitor guidelines to change starting June 15

“Visits from loved ones is an important part of the patient’s experience and healing,” says Shannon Phillips, MD, chief medical officer of Community-based Care and president of Intermountain Medical Group. “With COVID cases continuing to decline, and with our continued encouragement and efforts to help community members and caregivers get vaccinated, our clinical and operational leaders feel confident that expanding guidelines to facilitate visitation can be done safely as long as masking is continued and any additional personal protective equipment is used as needed.”

Here’s a summary of the changes.

In any Intermountain facility:

• Visitors are encouraged to support their loved ones and stay in the patient room, and to leave the facility after visitation.

In Intermountain hospitals and emergency departments:

• Visitors or companions must be 12 or older. We’re changing to age 12 from the prior age requirement of 18 because this age group now has access to the COVID-19 vaccine. access to this age group and because more people in our communities are becoming vaccinated. Minors under the age of 12 may not visit hospitals or emergency departments except to seek care for themselves or under certain exceptions outlined below. 
• Patients may have a maximum of two visitors at their bedside at one time. We’ll no longer require visitors to be designated visitors throughout the patient stay. They can switch with other visitors as long as no more than two are at the bedside at one time.
• Some units may have some additional restrictions that will be shared on admission, such as in the NICU or Pediatric Behavioral Health.
• The care team will work with the patient and family to arrange attendance at clinical conferences or care planning discussions. We’ll no longer have a limit on visitors for these meetings and will allow local teams to manage as they see fit.
• For patients at end of life, the unit charge nurse will work with family and loved ones to arrange visitation and support needs. We’ll no longer have a limit on visitors for end-of-life support, and will instead allow local teams to manage based on safety for the patient, visitors, and caregivers, as well as the care team’s ability to provide patient care.
• Visitors of COVID-19-positive or suspected patients will be allowed regardless of vaccination or immunity status. We’ll be deactivating the questionnaire for these visit types. Visitors of COVID-19 patients must wear personal protective equipment (PPE) provided by the facility. Caregivers will assist with proper PPE use to ensure safety. Local care teams may need to further limit visitation owing to facility resources, patient treatment, or in the case of a variant of concern.
• We still won’t allow visitors to Adult Behavioral Health Units. These units have more open and communal spaces, making in-person visitation during the pandemic challenging. We’ll escalate and work to accommodate in-person meetings with visitors based on patient care and need.
• We’ll continue to screen visitors at entrances and not allow visitors with signs of illness, those who have active COVID-19 or anyone in their household who tested positive or exhibited symptoms, or those with a pending COVID-19 test result.

In Intermountain clinics and InstaCares, and Primary Children’s outpatient clinics:

• We’ll no longer limit the number of patient companions, of any age, in our clinics.

Effective June 15, we’ll also begin to reinstate faith representative volunteers. If you have any questions about this change, please email Mike Rawlings, director of volunteer services.

To review all the current visitor guidelines, please visit IntermountainHealthcare.org, which will be updated on June 15 to reflect the changes.

Any exceptions to visitor guidelines will require approval through the hospital and medical leadership at the facility. Greeter scripts and any other signage will be updated during the next few days as appropriate. The visitor guideline changes will be announced to the public in a Facebook Live discussion on Friday, June 11.

If you have questions about the changes to visitor guidelines, please email Kristin Dascomb, MD, medical director of infection prevention.

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