Hands On Patient Care - Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP)

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Volunteers that are a good fit to join the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) will have a weekly 4-hour shift and will need to be able to commit to at least one calendar year to the program. Volunteers are very independent as they complete visits with patients 65 and older who are admitted within University Hospital at Michigan Medicine. Volunteer team members will complete a set of interventions with our patients including orientation, therapeutic (conversation, reminiscence therapy, trivia questions, cards, etc.), ambulation or active range of motion exercises if they are unsafe to walk, fluid replenishment, assistance with ordering meals and/or feeding if needed, sleep protocols (wake during the day, help get to sleep during the night shift with interventions such as hand or foot massage, relaxation exercises, quiet the environment, etc.), and hearing and vision interventions.

Volunteers who do the best on this team include those with an interest in going into the health field as you'll learn a lot about patient care and really looking at the person in a holistic way, before moving through to looking at the medical focus. However, we've had many other individuals join the team without healthcare focus and just the desire to give back to the older adult population as well.

We hold trainings 2-3 times per year to add team members and they're typically within 1-1.5 months after each school semester begins. The majority of our team is made up of college students going into the field, but we love our community members as well. Schedules are moved around each semester though since most college student's availability will change each semester, so the shift you are given will be the same for the entire semester and then will likely move elsewhere for the next semester. Even though there are accommodations made such as changing the schedule each semester, we are not part of the school and that means that we do not follow the school's schedule for breaks. Since patients are here at all times, we do not close the program down for holidays and such (besides a 2 week break around Christmas/New Years to give staff some time off). That being said, you can do a fall and winter semester, return home for the summer, and then complete one additional fall semester for your one year commitment (we'll work around things like that and vacations).