Media Coverage of IPFCC's Better Together Campaign

Last month the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care launched the Better Together campaign, calling on all hospitals to eliminate restrictive visiting policies and welcome families 24 hours a day.

The Better Together campaign is getting lots of attention across North America. Read what others are saying about the campaign.

Journalist and author Paula Span's posted: "A Move to Extend Visiting Hours at Hospitals" in the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. Ms.Span discusses IPFCC's Better Together campaign "to persuade hospitals to eliminate restrictive visiting hours and permit families, broadly defined, to remain with loved ones throughout their stays, even in intensive care units." Ms. Span notes that, "even in I.C.U.s, there's scant evidence that visitors cause harm," and she quotes from a JAMA commentary, co-authored by Don Berwick, "restricting visiting in I.C.U.s is neither caring, compassionate, nor necessary." Read the entire blog post.

Read the commentary by Anna Roth, CEO of Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in California and Sherry B. Perkin, COO and CNO of Anne Arundel Medical Center in Maryland, in Modern Healthcare. Make hospital visiting hours 24/7 describes initiatives in their own organizations to embrace family presence, citing IPFCC's Better Together campaign and its online resources for hospitals.

The Vancouver Sun reported on Providence Health Care's hospitals in British Columbia, Canada, that are "blazing a trial" embracing a family presence policy and eliminating visiting hour restrictions, citing IPFCC's Better Together campaign.

More media coverage coming soon.