Law Commons^™

Let Them In: Family Presence During Intensive Care Unit Procedures, Leslie P. Francis, Sarah J. Beesley, Ramona O. Hopkins, Diane Chapman, Joclynn Johnson, Nathanael Johnson, Samuel M. Brown

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Families have for decades advocated for full access to intensive care units (ICUs) and meaningful partnership with clinicians, resulting in gradual improvements in family access and collaboration with ICU clinicians. Despite such advances, family members in adult ICUs are still commonly asked to leave the patient’s room during invasive bedside procedures, regardless of whether the patient would prefer family to be present. Physicians may be resistant to having family members at the bedside due to concerns about trainee education, medicolegal implications, possible effects on the technical quality of procedures due to distractions, and procedural sterility. Limited evidence from parallel settings …