A paper from 2019 from the Intermountain Healthcare’s Center for Humanizing Critical Care in Salt Lake City questions this traditional practice of exclusion. Click on the title below to be linked to the article online on Medical XPress.

‘Do family members belong in ICU during procedures? Study finds clinicians mixed on practice.‘

My experience in ICU was the practice of exclusion, that of being asked to step outside during a procedure. This study in a Salt lake City Hospital finds these requirements are being broken down and vary from one practitioner to another. Questioning practices that continue to be done in the way they have always been done is such an important step in moving to a more patient centered treatment in ICU. This article very sweetly states that its important to know why nearly 60% of staff still exclude the patient’s family even though there appears to be an evidence basis for the family’s inclusion. .