Hospital Programs for Employee Volunteers

[RNJess2010]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone works at a hospital that has an established program for employees that wish to volunteer for a medical mission trip?

I have always travelled independently, but am trying to organize a group of co-workers and involve our hospital. Currently our hospital does not offer any incentives for volunteers such as PTO or scholarships.

At the very least I would like to create a program where interested employees could find information about different organizations and volunteer nursing in general to help them choose opportunities. Best case scenario would be a sister-hospital type situation where our hospital has an established relationship with another hospital or organization and sends teams there once a year or so.

I would appreciate advice from anyone who has experience with this kind of situation!

Thank you,

Jessica

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

OP: Hospitals and other healthcare organizations have a primary obligation to support their own operations/to keep their own doors open. So, even if you make a volunteer program, you will likely run into the same issue of only getting people to volunteer on approved PTO or normal days off. With that said, my hospital has a volunteer program with a few incentives.

For example, my organization may sponsor a local health event and post (using the volunteer program) opportunities for employees to volunteer at the event. In addition, an employee can post an event in the local community (or internationally) to get other employees to volunteer. Each volunteer experience can give an employee points towards rewards. Again, the program is voluntary and it is only open to employees to do on his/her off time or approved time off (PTO) so that there is no impact to operations of the organization. Good luck!