I attended an NCHVP (formerly NCSDVS) conference for the first time in 2014.  Over those three days, I drank in the advice offered  by our various presenters.  Two speakers in particular, Tammy Behnke, CVA and Doug Dell Pietra impressed upon me the importance of data collection as a means of communicating the impact of volunteers in the hospital’s over-all mission.

Coincidentally, after I returned from the conference, I was asked to put together a Volunteer Services Department dashboard.  To be honest, I didn’t even know what a dashboard was much less what it should contain.  Thanks to Google and Youtube, I was able to create a put together a “Dashboards For Dummys” course for myself.

For those who don’t know, a dashboard is an overview of the most important work of a department or project.  Usually presented in graph form (resembling a car dashboard),  it is a way of presenting a wide variety of information at a glance.

My first efforts were poor  - perhaps comical - but they helped me to convert the intangible world of volunteer service into information that our Administrative team could  understand.  By learning to “speak their language”, I was also learning how to create opportunities for Volunteer Services to be integrated into facility-wide initiatives.

Here are some of the goals which I have included in my dashboards:

·        Current year volunteer hours vs. prior year

·        Placement vs Resignation

·        Volunteer Openings and Assignment by department per week

·       Handwashing compliance audits

·        Volunteer satisfaction metrics

·        Gift Shop sales and profits

·        Length of volunteer on-boarding time by days

·        Volunteer Service/Gift Shop productivity metrics

·        Volunteer placements by departments and locations

·        Patient satisfaction scores in key volunteer areas

I have always made an effort to include information in these dashboards that demonstrate the desire of the Volunteer Services Department to share in the hospital- wide efforts to promote efficiency,  patient experience and  facility safety.  It is an opportunity to steer the conversation about the future of the Volunteer Service Department and to drive home the message that volunteers share in the work necessary to ensure the overall success of our hospital. 

Ann Taylor, Director Volunteer Services/Gift Shop

Carolina Medical Center, Pineville