Volunteer Positions

Information desk volunteers provide a welcoming and helpful first impression to patients and visitors.

Volunteers transport non-critical patients in wheelchairs, escort families to destinations, maintain an orderly desk and waiting area, and assist with other customer service-related duties.

The discharge lounge provides a comfortable and safe place for discharged patients to await transportation or prescriptions. Clinical staff and volunteers ensure patient safety and comfort.

Volunteers transport patients, answer phones and provide general patient-focused service.

The Patient Experience Volunteer (PEV) elevates customer service for our patients and their families. Assigned to a designated inpatient unit, the PEV proactively engages patients, anticipates needs and responds to requests to ensure patients and families are given every available comfort and amenity. The PEV supports the healing process by keeping patients socially and mentally active through conversation, reading and simple activity.

Inpatient units care for patients with a wide variety of medical conditions.

Inpatient volunteers may assist with procuring wheelchairs and transportation, answering phones, delivering items to patients, stocking, assisting patients and families with information, and providing general customer service.

Our outpatient clinics provide the highest quality of care to patients and promote long-term wellness. The clinic is staffed by attending and resident physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants who evaluate and treat a variety of acute and chronic illnesses and injuries.

Volunteers may provide front desk help, help with mail delivery, assemble packets, update education boards, provide transportation and run errands, all while providing great customer service.

Emergency Services provides Level I trauma adult and pediatric emergency care for the states of Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Emergency Services volunteers provide high-quality, patient-focused service using customer service strategies.

Duties may include stocking and organizing patient areas, transporting or delivering specimens, removing unneeded equipment, transporting patients and other non-medical duties assigned by staff.

• Qualifications: Volunteers must be a high school graduate or equivalent, with previous emergency room or inpatient unit volunteer experience, or previous CNA/MA experience.
• Time commitment: Weekly four-hour shifts for a minimum of six months.
• Minimum volunteer age: 18

In partnership with clinicians, Reach Out and Read leverages the well-child visit, using books and shared reading to support caregivers in fostering early literacy and healthy relationships with infants and young children. The only literacy model endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, Reach Out and Read annually serves 4.6 million children across every U.S. state.

Volunteer readers can provide a positive experience for children in the waiting room and can help to model good reading aloud practices for parents. You can help show parents just how much fun reading with children can be.

The Memory Hub operates as a vibrant dementia-specific community center, collaborative workspace and training center. Spearheaded by the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center (MBWC) and located on the campus of founding partner the Frye Art Museum, the Memory Hub welcomes visitors year-round to explore what it means to live well with dementia.

Memory Hub volunteers operate the front desk, work in the Memory Garden, share their handyperson skills, facilitate programming and much more.

NODA volunteers offer companionship to dying patients at Harborview who are without family or friends to sit with them. The companionship offered is very simple and is based on what the person or their next of kin requests – holding the person’s hand, reading, praying, singing, sitting quietly. It is non-sectarian and volunteers do not proselytize, respecting the patient and the patient’s own faith tradition.

Training is provided to new NODA volunteers by the Harborview Spiritual Care Department and Harborview Volunteer Services Department.

Office volunteers are a valuable part of the Harborview team. Filing, reporting, stocking, event management, greeting visitors and other office-related duties keep our departments running smoothly. Various departments and services invite volunteers to be a part of the team.

The public art collection at Harborview offers the experienced volunteer a role in the care and curation of multi-media works: organization, storage, moving, photographing, collecting dimensions, recording condition and more.

The mHELP (mini–Hospital Elder Life Program) is a program to support hospitalized older patients who are at risk for cognitive changes, called delirium, while they are in the hospital.

Volunteer activities help to prevent or reduce delirium through visitation, cognitive reorientation, promotion of sleep-wake cycles and nutrition support. Training is provided by Harborview Geriatric Medicine nurses and physicians. The program offers great exposure to interdisciplinary care of older patients in the hospital.