When older patients are hospitalized, they benefit from care provided by a variety of professionals: physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and others. At Sinai Health System, older patients are also additionally supported by another group of unique team members: volunteers.
Recognizing that hospitalized older adults are at a significantly higher risk of developing functional and/or cognitive decline while in hospital, Sinai Health System introduced its evidence-informed and award-winning MAUVE (Maximizing Ageing Using Volunteer Engagement) Volunteer Program in 2010 to improve patient and system outcomes on our specialized Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Unit.
Hospitalized older adults face challenges almost as soon as they are admitted. When older adults are hospitalized, they will often stay in bed for a significant proportion of their stay, which can actually hasten the decline of their overall functional abilities. For example, 30 to 60 per cent of acutely hospitalized older patients will experience a functional decline as a result of their stay in a typical inpatient care unit, and a year after discharge from hospital, less than one in two older adults will have regained their pre-illness level of function.
To help support older adults avoid these negative outcomes while in hospital, MAUVE volunteers perform a variety of activities that keep patients cognitively stimulated and mobile. These activities include assistance with orientation, therapeutic activities (e.g. games such as Sudoku), eating and hydration assistance, communal and congregate dining, pet therapy and vision and hearing aid support. With MAUVE volunteers seeing more than 1,000 patients over the last year, they have been having an enormous impact. And, the program is now actively spreading across the hospital and to Sinai Health’s other settings.
While MAUVE was launched in 2010, it has recently undergone a transformation. Recognizing that the MAUVE program could benefit from a refreshed structure, health system leaders and front-line providers came together in 2017 to restructure the program. Under its renewed model, MAUVE is now offered in a more intense and structured way that includes screening tools to identify the most appropriate patients who may benefit to be enrolled into the program.
Since its transformation, the MAUVE program has grown and spread tremendously across Sinai Health System. Originally launched on our ACE Unit, the MAUVE program has since expanded to other medical and surgical units in the hospital, as well as the Emergency Department, and is now serving rehabilitation patients at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare. Between 2017 and 2018, the volunteers in the program have dedicated a lot of time to working with patients. On inpatient units at Mount Sinai Hospital, MAUVE volunteers made 12,677 visits to older patients, dedicating 3,045 hours or 76 work weeks to their care; and in just the first six months of this year, MAUVE volunteers made 1,397 visits to patients in the emergency department, contributing over 229 hours of their time to supporting the outcomes of older patients in Sinai Health System.
In addition to benefiting patients, MAUVE volunteers have also made valuable contributions to support other health care providers. In the last year, the proportion of staff on Sinai Health System inpatient units who strongly agreed that volunteers enhance the care of their patients increased to 86% from 77% and the vast majority of our front-line nurses feel the MAUVE volunteers have allowed them to dedicated more of their time to better caring for all of their patients. Among current volunteers, 95% feel a sense of accomplishment from their role.
Now, the achievements of our MAUVE volunteer program are being recognized as innovative practices that should be emulated by others. On October 17, at Health Quality Transformation, the Ontario Government’s annual health quality conference, Health Quality Ontario awarded Sinai Health System with an Abstract of Distinction Award for its write-up evaluating the impact of Sinai’s MAUVE volunteer program – recognizing as its best in class submission for programs Engaging Patients and the Public in Improving Care. The evaluation found that by providing frail older patients who have multiple acute health and social complexities with more engagement to stimulate their minds, bodies and spirits, health systems could better improve their overall patient experience, as well as the staff and volunteer experiences of those who are caring for and supporting them in hospital.
We look forward to spreading this innovative volunteer program across Sinai Health System over the coming months and years to ensure all older patients, no matter where they are in our hospital, benefit from the specialized support, attention and care that volunteers provide.
Photo by Roger Yip, courtesy of Health Quality Ontario.
Date modified: 2019-01-02
