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How to safely allow visitors to your hospital in a COVID-exposed world (first of a seven-part series)

by Paul Kazlauskas

A new threat has been added to your hospital security list. COVID-19 means more vigilance, even when infections decline.

Increased scrutiny of visitors should continue.

Hospitals have always had to manage the risk of infectious diseases. But now, with the onset of Coronavirus Disease 2019, it is harder than ever to keep patients, staff, and visitors safe. This highly contagious and deadly disease poses a constant threat to everyone’s health.

So hospitals have had to implement much more stringent preventive measures. As a result, all visitors (and employees and patients, for that matter) receive careful scrutiny before being allowed to enter. This is a good thing and should continue.

As staying at home and social distancing reduce the number of COVID cases and related deaths, visitors will increase, heightening more traditional security concerns, like workplace violence, drug use, and theft. These risks, combined with the COVID-19 threat (however diminished), will still make screening and identifying visitors necessary to ensure everyone’s security.

(Next: Part Two — How to know who has permission to be in your hospital. Download our complete guide to safely allowing visitors.)

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Posted on 7/6/2020