Hospital Volunteer - Duties

Duties

Duties of hospital volunteers vary widely depending upon the facility. Volunteers may attend in staff reception areas and gift shops; file and retrieve documents; provide administrative backup; assist with research;help visitors; visit with patients; or transport various small items like flowers, medical records, lab specimens, and drugs from unit to unit.

A few hospitals ask their volunteers to help out with janitorial duties, like cleaning beds. Other "advanced volunteers" include patient-care liaisons and volunteer orderlies. These volunteers must operate on the orders of a nurse or a physician and are given special training to permit them to work with patients. They are also more common in large hospitals, particularly university-affiliated hospitals and teaching hospitals, as they allow pre-medical students to gain experience in patient care while taking pressure off a busy care team.

Some hospitals manage their volunteers from a dispersal unit and assign them to tasks based on real-time labor demand, while other hospitals assign volunteers to a single unit for the duration of their service. Female volunteers traditionally wore pink-and-white jumpers, while male volunteers traditionally wore light-blue tunics or shirts over dark slacks. Today, male and female volunteers often wear a uniform shirt or a short-sleeved shirt with slacks. Some volunteers (particularly "advanced volunteers") will wear scrubs, but this is usually avoided so volunteers are not confused with medical personnel. All volunteers wear ID tags within the hospital and these will prominently indicate the volunteer's status and position.