Planning a family visit program for PACU.

Hospitals can develop or improve a PACU visitation program by establishing a policy, setting rules for visitation, ensuring patient privacy, educating staff and families, and performing quality control. Resistance from nursing staff is fairly easy to overcome, and visitation in the PACU for all patients seems likely to become standard practice. Sullivan warns that not allowing visitation may be detrimental: "If you don't have a visitor program, you'll probably have people somehow figuring out what your phone number is, lurking outside the door, and trying to see if they can get in." She is confident that "if you have a good program that meets the needs of the patient, the family, and the nurse, it will be successful." PACU visitarion is integral to patient care and consistent with regulations such as those of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Jeran explains: "As nurses, we're taught to believe in family-centered care. That's the way nursing programs are set up; that's what JCAHO wants. I think it's unacceptable to have an area [in the hospital] where you don't reunite the family, even if it's just for a few minutes. She adds, "Anything that's going to make the patient and family more comfortable as they go through a very stressful period needs to be instituted, and we just have to figure out a way to make it work for everyone."