Family Matters in Healthcare
Imagine being required by a hospital or insurance company to be present at all times in a family member’s patient room?
I’ve heard about this happening in some U.S. hospitals and in healthcare facilities abroad. Evidence suggests social support from family helps patients heal emotionally and physically. The presence of family also can reduce the risk of a patient fall. So, it’s likely that teaching family to be caregivers inside and outside of the hospital will increase as hospitals face the need to reduce 30-day hospital re-admissions and deal with staff shortages.
This prompts the need for a family zone in the patient room, which is referenced in a research summary titled, “Patient Rooms: A Changing Scene of Healing,” but what features create the best family zone? You might see a work surface, a place to sleep, access to power, or Wi-Fi. Some hospitals already are including a second television or refrigerator. Going forward, patient rooms will have to adapt to support the needs of families as caregivers.
Something people can do in their local community to help out is putting together ICU bags for family members of patients. I’ve worked with a group in the past that purchased plain canvas bags at a craft store and filled them with travel sized toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, a toothbrush, simple snacks like packages of peanut butter crackers, etc.
We would give these to ICU nurses at local hospitals so they could pass them on to family members who were staying around the clock with an injured or ill loved one. It gave them stuff they needed that they would otherwise have had to go home or to a store to get. The nurses we worked with said these simple and inexpensive gifts made a huge difference to the recipients.
Daisy McCarty
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