How Do You Think Nurses Perceive Hospice-Palliative Care Volunteers?

[Frances Shani Parker]

What do you think surveyed nurses would say about their perceptions of hospice-palliative care volunteers? The “American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care” took such a survey and reports results in these areas: 1) Nurses attitudes and what they know about hospice-palliative care volunteers As a hospice volunteer myself, I have found nurses in general to have positive feelings toward volunteers. Survey results confirm this. However, nurses rated the value of nurses, family members, doctors, and pharmacists significantly higher than volunteers. Regarding the training of volunteers, 73% of the nurses indicated that they were not sure or did not know what topics were covered, indicating a lack of knowledge about what volunteers are taught. 2) Tasks nurses felt volunteers should perform The surveys revealed that 53% of the nurses felt that volunteers should know patient medical information, and 77% thought that volunteers should have the opportunity to provide input regarding patient care. In addition, 56% felt that volunteers should be included in team meetings. Did these results surprise you or did you expect them? You can read more here about this survey on nurses' perceptions of hospice-palliative care volunteers. Frances Shani Parker, Author "Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes” "Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog"

[brittany bennett]

I would like to study massage for this very purpose. I have rubbed patient`s back before to kinda soothe nerves, but I`m not trained. Speaking of training I went to a spa last year and a massage therapist from some asian country really knew her stuff. She found every knot in my my back and neck and massaged them away. She alsmost had a sixth sense about it.

[Frances Shani Parker]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Elizabeth. It's always good to get diverse perspectives. Each workplace has a unique culture.

[Elizabeth Holliday]

As a massage volunteer at Sutter VNA Hospice in San Francisco, I feel appreciated and understood by the nurses. I recall a deep sense of gratitude from the nurse case manager who spoke at my volunteer training. I feel compelled to do a better job of reporting, in fact, because I know the entire team, including of course, the nurses, is interested and listening. They know that I have unique access as a volunteer, and in this case as a massage volunteer.

[MJ Schaumann]

I had just finished reading this article and the survey very interesting. I fortunately am part of a hospice where the volunteers are well respected by our nurses, social workers, medical director, etc. In fact, they are very much encouraged to attend and report at Team Meetings. When they can't attend, I bring their reports to Team and share with the group. What I did find intersting was the lack of knowledge of the training that volunteers must complete and the lack of knowledge that they must meet all the compliance regulations - the same as staff. I also don't think that staff is aware of the mandated 5%. I have decided, with the encouragement of our Executive Director, to have an inservice at our next monthly general staff meeting.

MJ Schaumann
Hospice & Palliative Care of Westchester

[Frances Shani Parker]

I commend you on your inclusive efforts. The survey results and my own experiences confirm that you are exceptional in this area. Your actions are the kind that encourage empowerment, harmony, and efficiency in the workplace.

[Greg Schneider]

It is interesting that you bring up this topic at this time. Earlier this week I had lunch with Dr. Stan Goldberg, who writes a regular column in our Hospice Volunteer News magazine titled Insights: the "How To" of Hospice Volunteering. We had a discussion on a related topic -- what are the perceptions of hospice-palliative care volunteers by hospice staff, outside of the volunteer coordinator/manager?

We had this discussion for two reasons:

1) Dr. Goldberg, a professor of speech pathology and hospice volunteer himself, had a recent experience that showed a lack of understanding of the volunteer's role. He also told me about experiences that show hospices are often unaware of a volunteer's professional background and don't effectively utilize those skills.

2) I have been observing a growing trend that the roles of the volunteer are diminishing. Even the most simple tasks are deemed inappropriate for volunteers to do because hospice administrators have liability concerns. To read more on this visit the Volunteer Management Group discussion titled The Diminishing Role of Volunteers.

I was not surprised by the answer to survey question #1 based upon my own experience. Some years ago I used to volunteer in a residential hospice facility when it first opened and the majority of the staff were very experienced but had not worked in a hospice before and had virtually no experience working with volunteers. This led to some interesting relationships between the clinical staff and the volunteers as we set out to do our work.

After about a year or two of operations, the organization decided to have a meeting between some of the clinical staff and the volunteers because friction was building between some of the nurses and the volunteers. Nurses were unhappy with the fact that volunteers didn't seem to be doing what they expected they "should" be doing.

The meeting, which permitted the volunteer coordinator and the volunteers to have a dialog about their training and roles, helped defuse the situation and led to a more harmonious environment after learning more about what volunteers do.

One of the hospices I volunteer with, Memorial Hospice in Santa Rosa, CA requires new clinical staff to attend some minimum number of the volunteer training modules (their choice) as part of their orientation. They participate as a volunteer in training modules they choose to attend. This goes a long way toward helping clinical staff to better understand the role of volunteers.

The answers to question #2 will be highly correlated to the answers to question #1.

The perceptions are simply a lack of awareness and knowledge about what volunteers are trained to do and what their potential is. The only way to change these perceptions is for volunteer coordinators to help the clinical staff learn about their volunteers.

One of HVA's future goals is to help hospices create online biographies of each volunteer that can be accessed by other hospice staff. The bio will also include the areas of specialty that the volunteer has been trained in.

In addition, the HEAL Project's Hospice Volunteer Training Institute is developing a training curriculum for volunteers and volunteer managers, which will lead to certification levels commensurate with their level of training and experience in hospice. This will help clinical staff to quickly assess what skills a certain volunteer has.

I also hope that members of this forum will invite their clinical staff to join this forum (just click on the Invite tab and enter their e-mail address), which will get them involved in this dialogue.

[Terri Tribble]

I think it varies, but I was surprised by the posted results. I think that a lot of times nurses feel like volunteers are incapable for the most part, but then also, at times, are pleasantly surprised.

[Frances Shani Parker]

Terri, I understand exactly what you mean. Because I have worked more closely with nursing assistants, I think they appreciate volunteers' contributions more because they share similar duties such as feeding patients. This was particularly noticed on days with staff shortages.

The survey results indicate that nurses are not really clear about what volunteers are capable of doing. You have noticed that, too. While nurses may have positive feelings toward volunteers, they would value volunteers' potential abilities more if they were more informed about volunteer training.