Identifying tasks and skills, using VocFit, working with managers and mentors, systematic instruction
Small Hospital Internships
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Julie Grieshop Posts: 15
2/3/2022
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This is our first year with Project SEARCH in a small community hospital. We have a max capacity of about 40 beds. I currently have 11 internships in the hospital (SPD, Kitchen, Enviromental Services, Rehab and OB). Any ideas for other departments? I don't want to burn departments out with always having to train interns, so I would like more internship options!
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Demarnia Lloyd-Harris Posts: 1
4/11/2022
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Hi, we have a couple of different internships that we are working on around the small-ish hospital we are based in - window cleaning (inside and out) - often the last thing that gets done here and deeply appreciated by staff and patients - for us it can be piggy-backed off a cleaning, grounds or maintenance internship but needs to be an intern who can work with a bit less supervision, and the Skills Trainer will usually be more involved.
Also car cleaning - there is a fleet of staff cars here that rarely get detailed - not sure how you would get mentor support but again for a fairly independent intern who needs less hands-on oversight it could be linked into a relevant department for mentor input but with the intern working mainly independently - better suited to an internship later in the programme year once you know which interns would manage this.
Another thing we have done is have off-site internships with connected branches of the District Health Board - I am not sure how things work where you are, but under the same Health Board umbrella of our base hospital are Community Dental clinics and Early Intervention services that are out in the community, and we have had some successful internships with them - a bit of a logistical challenge with transport and Skills Trainer support, but we figured it out and it worked well, again for 2nd and 3rd internships as you need to be confident that the intern can manage away from the base group.
We have also built a few internships using different departments at the same time to reduce pressure on mentors - rather than burn them out. Example, we had someone in a catering assistant internship and added in 2 mornings a week doing administration in a different department - this gave both mentors a break and also gave the intern more experiences.
Once you build deeper relationships with the different parts of the hospital you can ask them for ideas, or see what might work outside of the box.
Good luck!
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Kati Curby Posts: 2
4/12/2022
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Congrats on your year! I am not sure if you thought of this, but see if your business liaison can approve flyers to place in department mailboxes. That might draw more attention and awareness to the program and how it can be a win-win for everyone. Our hospital is big, but maybe I can help you think of ideas. Our interns have had success in the pediatrics/NICU/PICU, imaging departments, stat stores (where we store hospital supplies, assemble crash carts, cycle counts), dock/receiving, linen, ER, house keeping, and transporting. These are just some ideas from more of the common hospital departments. If you would like suggestions on what interns can do in these departments, feel free to reach out Kcurby@sased.org.
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