Kudos to Deborah H. Allen, director of Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice and DANCE member with Duke Health, and Christine Barnes with Duke Raleigh Hospital, for the submission of their Duke Institute for Health Innovation (DIHI) proposal entitled: “Virtual Volunteer Visitation: Developing a Multi-Media App to Facilitate Care in Isolated Hospitalized Patients." 

Health care organizations have endured unanticipated expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic compounding already increasing health care costs. Redesigning care delivery has become essential to remaining viable so healthcare organizations can continue to provide safe, quality care effectively during this tumultuous time in the midst of limited resources and finances. The use of volunteers is a cost-attractive resource for hospitals in providing nonmedical services to improve quality of care, such as providing information, emotional support, and reassurance to patients and families to positively affect the quality of care while holding down costs.4 The VVV app is a novel idea for a multi-modal platform that facilitates two-way interface between patients/volunteers AND incorporates training, security, compliance, and resource integration for volunteer virtual visitation.

This app will be standardized to meet national hospital security standards (The Joint Commission and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General) AND customizable to allow for hospital-level modifications for addressing the needs of specific patient populations hospitals serve and the volunteers helping to serving them. The versatility of this app is a creative approach to solving the problem of connecting with patients hospitalized with COVID-19 due to visitor restrictions and isolation precautions.