If your hospice needs new volunteers, most do, what is your recruiting perspective?
Do you recruit thinking only of the needs of your hospice -- am I going to make that 5% target this month or do you consider the needs of the potential volunteer pool?
Being a volunteer myself, who has a busy schedule, I prefer to volunteer with hospices that are conscious of the limited amount of time I have. Unfortunately all of the hospices I volunteer with in my local area are not using an electronic form of reporting such as HVA's Patient Data Vault. I am constantly having to deal with paper and envelopes. When I run out of forms or envelopes I have to have them mail me a new supply, sometimes delaying my form submittal. Then I have to find a mail box, which is hard to find these days, or get to a post office. I find it to be a hassle, knowing that better alternatives are available. If I knew a hospice had easier reporting methods, I would change hospices.
How To Be More Successful in Your Volunteer Recruiting
If you want more volunteers to consider joining your organization, you need to update your management and reporting tools. Your probabilities of getting a volunteer to come to your hospice if you are still pushing paper and mailing envelopes will be less in this day and age. Younger volunteers and computer savvy professionals will favor a competitor that is using the Patient Data Vault (PDV), over a hospice that does not use a computer-based reporting tool that is accessible via the Internet.
If you are using the PDV, use it as a marketing tool!! Put it in your advertising. Also add that members will receive free memberships to HVA upon completion of their training if they come to your hospice. There are many resources that are valuable to new volunteers that are about to make a life changing choice of serving those who are dying. Successful recruiting is about making your hospice stand out compared to its competitors. Let HVA help you improve your recruiting odds!!
Hospices located in college towns can draw college students easier if they advertise that they care about the volunteer's time and that they use the latest technologies such as the PDV, which allows volunteers to easily submit reports and communicate with their volunteers about patient-related activities using the latest technologies, including text messaging.
If you are interested in trying HVA's inexpensive PDV service, which many hospices have been using for several years, contact HVA at (866) 489-4325. It will improve that care that you provide and make you volunteers happier and your volunteer program more efficient.
Greg Schneider
President, HVA
Comments
Sometimes it isn't the volunteer manager who resist doing away with paper it is upper management. I also allow my volunteers to get paperwork in anyway they feel comfortable with. Talk to both volunteers and upper management and find a consensus
We have the volunteer send in visit notes via e-mail with only using the patients first and last initial and no other patient identifyer. We can find the patient's name from our records in the office. We have a template the volunteer can use or they can simply shoot us an e-mail with the same information.
How do you do that not being on a network with the volunteers personal computers in staying in regulation with HIPPA? If you are releasing patient information and documentation over a system that is not secured, or maybe I should ask, how do you assure to a surveyor that the systems are secure? Personal computers are not considered a validated secured system. Do you provide laptops?
Hi Deb, what system are you using?
We primarily use electronic reporting and it works really well. We do make exceptions for those volunteers who prefer paper..or even to phone in their report. We do ask after each new client initial visit that the volunteer call in the first time to let us know how the visit went and if the match is a good one.