Hospital Volunteering Research Paper

“The contribution of volunteers results in an increase in the quality of perceived care in hospital settings (even with simple hand holding, information giving, and other non-medical services). These may be non-clinical and non-union tasks, but they provide a warm, human dimension during a difficult time for the patients and their families” (Handy, 2004, pp. 31-32). “Volunteers assist patients with prompt responses to their non-medical needs and reduce the anxieties of being vulnerable and alone-a common and significant occurrence. As hospitals grow larger and become more specialized and technologically sophisticated, the effective use of volunteers is vital in maintaining a human and personal touch” (Handy, 2004, p. 35).

Hospital volunteers are crucial to the hospital environment. The hospital volunteers are people who interact with the patient if the parent can’t make it on time because of a meeting or simply are there when a kid needs help with his math homework or is bored of watching T.V.. Kids also seek out advice from different people that are not their family. A lot of the kids at the Children’s Hospital in Aurora have been there their whole life and volunteers tend to make a great connection with them after each shift. Most of the volunteers are white because of the connections their family members can make and they can get a good reference when filling out the application to become a volunteer. At the Children’s Hospital of Aurora there are not many Hispanic women volunteers that are college educated. These young women have a lot to say when it comes to volunteering at the Children’s Hospital.

In my community many people do not understand the struggles of kids with serious illnesses and the financial and mental toll it has in the parents. To have more understanding of the problem I encourage people to volunteer at hospitals to gain more knowledge about the problem.

The healthcare system in America started as a predominantly volunteer system where patients were required to pay little to nothing for treatment. Since it began, the healthcare industry has seen tremendous changes that have transformed it into a business entity which has operations like financial management, strategic planning and functional specialties to keep the industry viable. The industry is one of the largest in the country employing 15 million people with a projected increase of jobs with 3 million jobs annually. As the healthcare industry continues growing, services and personnel are changing, and various dynamics are coming into play to accommodate changes (Smith, Saunders, Stuckhardt, & McGinnis, 2013).

In order to be a volunteer, one must first realize that volunteering is a serious matter. The

Nonprofit organizations have become the interest of many financial investigations over the last twenty years. One firm that found themselves on the wrong end of media scrutiny is Helping Hospitalized Veterans also known as HHV. Helping Hospitalized Veteran’s mission is to help veterans who have been hospitalized rehab from their injuries quicker. This mission is accomplished by making craft kits for veterans to enjoy and take their minds off their current situation. The mission helps recovering veterans in two ways, first the actual act of using impacted muscle groups to make the specialized crafts help aid with manual dexterity. Also Veterans have their minds stimulated while working on the various crafts provided by HHV.

College students and others can enhance the agency’s program by following my experience and volunteering and educating themselves on behavioral health. Raising money to provide resources needed to help the Cone Health team and their patients fight their issues would also substantially aide the program. Some of my top suggestions for fundraisers include a car wash on the weekend, a bake sale in the midst of a long-awaited sporting event, and selling bracelets that bring light to specific behavioral illnesses. (i feel as though something should be added to transition from this paragraph to the closing

Many people don’t realize the true value of volunteering, but I’ve come to understand the incredible impact of volunteering through my experience at Memorial Hermann. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” For me, his words could not be truer.

The organization heavily counts on volunteers to make its mission a reality. “Not only was it rewarding giving back but we also had the opportunity to learn about

Therefore, if I were a leader of an interprofessional healthcare team, I would decide to choose volunteers that were dedicated to this improvement project. After two weeks on the job, if I noticed my volunteers started to make excuses for not having completed their assigned tasks and failing to return my

While shadowing physician assistants, I volunteered at The Mustard Seed Medical Missions, a nonprofit organization that provides medical care to those with financial hardships. My first day there I got to meet the staff who made it all happen – the two women who worked the front desk who answered phones and organized patient files, the nurse who manually took blood pressure and did a review of why the patient was attending, the phlebotomist who took blood in even the smallest of veins to run labs, the translator

I developed an extremely busy life ever since I entered Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions. For me, it can be very hard to find time to volunteer especially at a hospital like St. Joseph. However, the benefits from volunteering at the hospital are enormous for me, my family, and my community. Becoming a St. Joseph volunteer gives me the chance to learn about the work environment, the different cultures that exists in Houston, and multiple personalities of the employees

Another problem involves the increased time required to identify a given issue, as well as the best practice to formulate and pass a given message. Finally, the hospital faces negative perception by the local patients, which is generated from individual beliefs and perceptions. To curb these challenges, the SickKids Hospital has developed a suitable financial base such as appropriate shareholder and investor inclusion to raise funds for their physicians, communication platforms, and education to alter the perception of the local individuals (Wong, 2012). Together with the inclusion of varying investors, the hospital has broadened its services to include indulgence in charity work. This enables the hospital to develop suitable corporate social responsibility strategies that boosts its finances. In additional, the charity work enables the hospitals to develop a suitable consumer environment that links its operations to its performance and productivity objectives. Donations and Christmas gifts have also contributed largely to funding the SickKids Hospital. Corporate programs within the hospital have been developed to ensure that donations and gifts are accepted at a specified time with suitable compensation for individuals who offer the

“Volunteers are not paid; not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.” - Sherry Anderson (Volunteering Quotes: Finest Quotes).

In my five years of active volunteer work with multiple non-profit organizations, I have seen firsthand the lack of attendance of my peers in times of great community need and support from its members. Although it has become more complicated to find time to give back to the community, with a full-time school and work schedule, there is always spare time to give back. The rapidly growing demand for volunteers in communities all across America is increasing and it is everyone’s duty, especially college students, to pay their dues to the