Whenever you or a loved one must stay in the hospital, the hospital's top priority is providing you with the very best care.

As Director of Risk Management and patient safety at Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center, Julie Pike knows the importance of having rules in hospitals-for example: visiting hours. "It's a good idea to remember to respect those and the reason is because the hospital is a place for patients who are sick and to get rest and have quiet. So we ask that if you want to stay, that might be appropriate, but we'd like to know about that and we can plan on it."

Julie explains that some rules may seem silly to people, like no latex balloons, but there's reasons for it. "There are patients who are allergic to latex and so we try to have as little latex in the hospital, and in all of our supplies and equipment as possible. Some people are so sensitive that even being close to them they can have a reaction."

Julie says that the hospitals priority is your privacy, which can cause problems for family and friends that want to know how you're doing, but there is a simple solution. "We have now federal privacy laws better known as HIPAA. It's a good idea to, when you come to the hospital, to have one person that you tell the staff is allowed to have that information in addition to yourself if you wish, but otherwise we will not give information to people on that phone."

And if all of your family is out of state and the phone seems to be the only way of communication, there are things that can be done to accommodate. Julie also says that "Sometimes hospital's will assign a pin number and that's kind of a number that we know if the person calling in gives us that number that it's ok to give the information, that they're approved to receive the information and that's a conversation we have with the patient when they first come in."

Bottom line - hospitals set guidelines for you when you stay in the hospital to give you the best possible care while protecting your privacy.

Another common hospital rule regards cell phone use. With today's technology it's more of myth that cell phones interfere with equipment; John discovered the bans are primarily in place as a courtesy.