UW Hospital Visiting Hours

Embracing patient- and family-centered care is a growing trend among hospitals, and UW Hospital and Clinics recognizes that open visitation plays an important role in a patient's healing and recovery.

Hospitalized patients may identify a small number of "primary support" people who will generally be able to visit at any time during their hospital stay (24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Primary support persons are those who normally provide a patient with significant physical, psychological or emotional support. Examples might be a close family member, partner or best friend. Visiting hours (8am-9pm) will still apply to a patient’s other visitors or guests.

Once identified by the patient, primary support persons will receive an authorization card from unit staff and submit it to hospital security. In exchange for the card, primary support ID badges will be issued and must be worn by primary support people during non-visiting hours. Learn more about Guidelines for Primary Supports and Visitors

Family and friends are welcome to visit often while their loved ones are in the hospital. When they visit or call the information desk, we'll provide the patient's room and phone numbers. If you are a patient and do not want this information released, please tell your nurse or someone on your health care team.

• Visiting hours in most units are from 8am-9pm, but those identified as primary support persons may stay with the patient at any time
• Some patient care areas may have restrictions while patients are in therapy, or for other designated periods during the day

Children are welcome to visit patients. Adults who bring children are responsible for supervising them. To help ensure that our patients are not exposed to contagious diseases, children or adults recently exposed to illnesses such as chicken pox and measles should not visit.

On arrival, visitors should check at the information desk or nursing unit to learn if any restrictions apply to the patient they wish to visit. This is especially important for those visiting patients in the intensive care units (ICUs) and burn unit.

Some of our patient rooms are small and too many visitors can make patient care difficult. We appreciate your help in limiting visitors in the room to a manageable number. If a doctor or nurse must see the patient, visitors may be asked to leave briefly.

For patients who do not wish to have visitors, we will place a No Visitors sign on the door.