Carle Now Requiring Protective Equipment To See Isolated Patients

Carle Hospital is one of a growing list of hospitals requiring visitors to wear personal protective equipment when they visit patients kept in isolation. Carle Senior Infection Preventionist Taffy Creviston says they’re following guidelines issued last year by the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America. She says the concern is with preventing infectious diseases from visitor to patient - and vice-versa.

“Especially during flu season, visitors coming in may not have been vaccinated, you know, bring in the flu and vice-versa, could get it by coming in," she said. "So we really just want to be able to control that, no matter if the patient or the visitor is possibly transmitting that.”

Creviston says visitors will wear the same personal protective equipment that doctors and nurses have been wearing --- sterile gloves, gowns and surgical masks. Carle is providing ones designed to be worn just once and then thrown away, at its hospital in Urbana and at the Carle Regional Health Center in Hoopeston.

Only adults will wear the personal protective gear. Creviston says children under 12 will not be allowed to visit patients in isolation at all.

Area Presence hospitals - Covenant in Urbana and United Samaritans in Danville- already require the protective gear when visiting patients in isolation.