NHPCO NewsLine Summer 2021 - 15

For most hospices, volunteer programs
have been almost entirely shut down for
over a year now. While the CMS Waivers
are still in place, it is a good time to start
strategically planning to reintegrate
volunteers into your programs as this can
be a very involved procedure.
A good first step is to reach out to the volunteer
base and see who is interested in volunteering again.
Based on feedback on the My.NHPCO Volunteer
Management community list serve, many agencies
are seeing volunteer force reductions from 15-40%.
What you initially offer to patients and families may
need to be very deliberate and based on what is now
available in your volunteer pool. Our agency sent out
a survey to volunteers asking them what they
needed to feel comfortable returning, and which jobs
they would be willing to do. Some chose to not
return, some chose to do entirely different jobs from
pre-pandemic activity. This helped us plan for what
might be most successful to open up.
Second, consider what training/retraining they
might need. Most volunteers have essentially had a
year off. At a minimum, you might consider a
modified infection control review that addresses
any new PPE they might be using now that they did
not (regularly) before. Reviewing job descriptions is
recommended as well; our agency chose to develop
a pandemic job description addendum that
explained new expectations. These included things
like calling off if they had any symptoms,
understanding where to find risk factors for COVID
19, explaining the PPE requirements, and other
related items. This sets the stage for what will be
expected when they return to active volunteering.
Another consideration is to think about how things
may have changed in facilities. Even if a volunteer
visited a particular nursing home or assisted living
prior to the pandemic, procedures may have
changed. We instituted a policy that a staff
member on the team (nurse, SW, CNA, chaplain,
etc) meets the volunteer for their first visit just to
go over logistics and procedures and handle any
questions. This builds confidence and a sense of
team for the volunteer as well.
Evaluating your hospice's needs for volunteers as
well as the priority needs of the patients and
families will also help guide a reopening plan. While
every organization is different, we found that
having volunteers screen visitors at the front door
to the IPUs was extremely helpful and low risk. It
also started to build confidence in our teams that
volunteers were ready and willing to help.
Another item to consider in terms of processes is to
make sure that volunteers know when it is (or is not)
appropriate to make a visit. Our volunteers make a
prescreening call prior to an in person visit asking
very similar questions to the ones our clinical teams
ask. If any answer is yes (someone in the home
exposed, with active COVID, or symptomatic), they
indicate that the visit was not made due to
prescreening. Similarly, volunteers need to self
screen before visits or any duties and not come in if
they have any symptoms or exposure risk.
Evaluating your hospice's needs for volunteers as well as the
priority needs of the patients and families will also help guide
a reopening plan.
Newsline / Summer 2021 15
NHPCO NewsLine Summer 2021

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