Visitor Guidelines

Essentia Health recognizes that family involvement is an essential component of total patient care and encourages family and friends to visit.

COVID-19 screening

Patients and visitors will be asked to self-screen for COVID-19 symptoms upon entry.

Hospital Visiting Hours and Guidelines

We welcome visitors anytime a patient wishes to receive them. Some departments or situations may require limited visitation for safety or other reasons.

• The time and length of a visit, along with the number of persons visiting, may be limited due to patient preference, the rest needs of patients, and other factors decided by the care team.
• Children under the age of 16 must be always accompanied by an adult.
• Please don’t visit if you are sick or have a fever, aches, cough, or other contagious condition.
• If a patient has many visitors, we may ask some to wait in common areas and take turns visiting the patient.
• Visitors may be asked to wear protective clothing in a patient’s room, such as gown, mask, or gloves.
• Visitors disrupting patients or staff may be asked to leave.
• We wish to honor patient preferences for having family present during most non-surgical procedures. We may ask to limit this to one person.

Same-Day Procedures

Patients having a same-day procedure should bring an adult who can drive them home that day. This person may stay with the patient until the start of the procedure and rejoin the patient upon return to the room for recovery. During the procedure, this person should wait in the procedural waiting room or return at an agreed-upon time.

Surgical Areas

• For the safety of patients, family members may not normally go with a patient to the operating room. One family support person is welcome in the operating room during a cesarean birth.
• Open visitation is not available in the post-anesthesia recovery suite. Depending on the status of a patient, and of other patients in the unit, staff may invite up to two family members to the recovery area for a brief visit.
• Staff may invite guardians of a patient under the age of 16 to join their child in the recovery room as soon as possible after the child’s arrival in recovery.

Emergency Room

The Emergency Room medical staff will determine appropriate times and lengths of visits.

Behavioral Health

Visitation to the behavioral health unit is by appointment only.

Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)

• Up to four people may visit at a time, with one visitor requiring an ID band matching the patient. Exception: Parents and siblings of the hospitalized infant may be at the bedside together at the nurses’ discretion as a family unit for short visits.
• Visitors must wash their hands before entering the NICU, per staff instruction.
• Siblings are welcome in the NICU if they have had the chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine.
• Guardians who are unable to routinely spend time in the NICU due to distance, illness, etc., may choose up to two other adults who may be at the NICU bedside when guardians are unable. Arrangements for this will be decided by family and hospital staff.

Some hospitals or units may need to put in place visitor restrictions based on the current situation or safety reasons. Those restrictions may not be listed above. It is not possible to predict every reason that could call for limitations. There also may be times when exceptions to the guidelines are necessary. We reserve the right to decide when to limit visitation and make exceptions. Essentia Health will not deny visitation based on color, race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Clinic Guidelines

No restrictions at this time.