key: cord-0982540-a5pqhjdw
authors: Lim, Eunice; Alexander, Nathaniel; Hanson, Shona; Tosich, Tanya; O’Brien, Fran; Chu, Matthew; Frotjold, Astrid
title: Responding to no‐visitor policies during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Virtual care initiatives for hospitalized patients
date: 2021-11-28
journal: J Adv Nurs
DOI: 10.1111/jan.15121
sha: 75e162195bf9a3f620886c53a4ac08f1c28a5782
doc_id: 982540
cord_uid: a5pqhjdw

nan

At the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided challenges to health services globally for close to 2 years. These challenges have included the need for enhanced infection control procedures, markedly increased demand for services, rapid upskilling and redeployment of the workforce, support for staff physical and psychological welfare as they deliver services and deal with considerable loss of life, and in many settings, responsibility for vaccine rollout. Many services have faced significant changes to daily operations, and previously unproblematized and uncomplicated aspects of service delivery, such as the presence of visitors in hospitals has been affected. Many hospitals and other health services have had strict restrictions in place about visiting, as one strategy for keeping COVID-19 out of hospitals.

While the implementation of no-visitor policies has been necessary to protect the health of patients and the workforce in hospitals, such restrictions have also caused hardship to patients, families and staff. Many approaches to healthcare assume that family support (however defined) is available to patients, and that family members will be involved in care and decision-making. These approaches de- (Rose et al., 2021) . The vast majority of these hospitals (97%) had adopted virtual family visiting, and the most common indications identified were to alert and orient patients, and to facilitate family interaction for patients at the end of life (Rose et al., 2021) .

There are many benefits of virtual visiting, including reduced patient psychological distress, improved staff morale, reorientation of delirious patients with help of family, overcoming language barrier and enhancing patient-centred care (Rose et al., 2021) . Use of virtual care can not only enhance the quality of life for patients and their loved ones, but also lead to additional benefits such as reducing anxiety and allowing non-vocal patients to communicate via computer keyboards (Nusdorfer, 2013) . Furthermore, Angus and Connolly (2020) describes multiple uses of virtual care in healthcare system in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, such as monitoring patients with milder COVID-19 symptoms in their homes, being able to ensure effective contact and involvement of quarantined health workers and providing continuity of care for people with chronic illnesses remotely.

Virtual care is not only relevant in the emergent COVID-19 pandemic. Looking beyond the pandemic, virtual care initiatives have

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