Can the public use their own personal mobile phones in American
> hospitals?
Hospitals I have been in within the last couple of years had areas where phones were banned. For example, the waiting room was ok, but the actual emergency work area had signs prohibiting phones. I think the entire cardiac department was off limits, also Intensive Care Units. In some areas there are a lot of (presumably unshielded) sensors attached to patients and a lot of of computerized monitoring equipment, and I was told that if a phone was too close it could cause the equipment to malfunction or cause false alarms.
I did notice little stub antennas in corridors but am not sure what equipment they were for.
Dave