'No Patient Left Alone' Act Designates Unrestricted Visitation

The No Patient Left Alone Act has been in effect for more than a month.

It is a hospital visitation law that allows patients to designate a visitor to have unrestricted visitation, but hospital leaders said there are exceptions to the law that allows visitation.

"The No Patient Left Alone Act is designed so that we are being the best advocates we can for patients," said Dr. Kersey Winfree, the chief medical officer for SSM Health St. Anthony. "And we also know that that kind of compassionate contact with loved ones does have an impact on people and their overall experience in the hospital."

But at the same time, Winfree said it is a balancing act as they were following the law before it went into effect on November 1.

"We do try to allow them to visit under circumstances where there is considered to be the least amount of risk, and I would say the greatest amount of return or experience for the patient," said Winfree.

Under this law there are some areas hospitals have the right to limit patient visitation in, those include the presence of visitor is medically or therapeutically contraindicated, the presence of visitor interferes with the care or rights of other patients, visitor is engaging in disruptive or violent behavior, or visitor is non-compliant with hospital policy.

"It is not meant to be just an open access type of rule," said Winfree.

A disclaimer in the act also said nothing in the act should be construed to require a hospital to allow a visitor to enter an operating room, isolation room, isolation unit, behavioral health setting or other typically restricted area or to remain present during the administration of emergency care in critical situations.

In situations like those, Winfree said they've innovated.

"We've been using Facetime," said Winfree. "We've been using iPads, we have provided some line of sight visits through some glass barriers, so that we could make certain that people were maintaining some sort of connection with loved ones because that is important in people's course of illness and recovery."

Now during a visitation, according to the law, visitors must comply with reasonable safety protocols and rules of conduct. The hospital may revoke visitation rights if visitors fail to comply with hospital visitation policy.