Friendly Calls to Seniors: an Interprofessional Student Volunteer Program

Introduction Older adults compose a segment of the population who are especially vulnerable to loneliness and isolation and have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1],[2],[3],[4] Evidence shows traditional social support programs enhance their health and well-being; the current pandemic provides an opportunity to understand the potential benefits of virtual social support.[5],[6] Friendly Calls to Seniors (FCS) is an interprofessional student volunteer program that is part of Columbia University's COVID-19 Student Service Corps (CSSC), founded at the outset of the pandemic. Utilizing a script developed by student leaders and faculty advisors from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), volunteers regularly call older adults with underlying mental health conditions. The calls provide social support and opportunities to identify and refer health concerns to care providers, thereby addressing both medical and social needs this group faces, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods FCS is a phone call-based social support program in which student volunteers provide companionship and conduct health risk assessments for interested clients, who are older adults with underlying psychiatric conditions referred by clinical providers in the Washington Heights region of Manhattan. Student volunteers are on-boarded, HIPAA-trained, and supervised by two student leaders, as well as two faculty members of CUIMC, a geriatric psychiatrist and an occupational therapist. Volunteers use a HIPAA-compliant platform to securely call clients, using a translator if necessary. Calls are conducted using a script, which includes a suggested introduction, sample conversational topics, and a risk assessment for health and functioning that incorporates psychiatric and occupational considerations. The script also includes an escalation flowchart to refer client issues to the attention of the faculty supervisors to be connected with social workers, medical professionals, or community resources. Calls are tracked through secure survey forms and project metrics are tabulated weekly. The volunteer team convenes in weekly Zoom meetings to review volunteer-client interactions and pose questions that may have arisen. The project has integrated educational workshops from other organizations such as Columbia's Narrative Medicine Program. The student and faculty leadership also collaborates with community-based organizations and naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) in the Washington Heights region. Results At the time of writing, a total of 400 calls have been made by FCS student volunteers to 72 unique clients, ranging in age from 61 to 96. Of these, 38 are English-speaking and 34 are Spanish speaking; 49 clients elected to continue receiving calls. All clients have existing mental and physical health conditions, including depression, anxiety, neurocognitive disorders, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. Medical comorbidities, which were highly prevalent, existing in 45% of clients, included diabetes mellitus and hypertension. In total, 48 escalations have been made since the start of the program. Table 1 displays a breakdown of the escalation reasons: There have been 41 total volunteers since the program's inception, of whom 18 are currently active. The volunteers represent a wide range of health professions and undergraduate programs at Columbia, as seen in Table 2. Qualitative volunteer feedback about FCS was obtained through call log responses and reflection sessions. Volunteers cited increased knowledge of community resources and improved skills in relationship-building and addressing geriatric-specific concerns, such as discussing mental health concerns in an age-attuned and culturally sensitive manner. Additional skills gained included the ability to properly coordinate with an interpreter and communicate across language barriers; many students had never worked with an interpreter prior to being a part of FCS. Conclusions The FCS program exhibits promising qualitative results supporting vulnerable older adults. Using a script with a systematic risk assessment, volunteers have performed regular outreach to seniors and referred them to appropriate social services and/or healthcare professionals as needed. Clients and the FCS team have mutually benefited from the interprofessional perspectives informing this program, which have led to improved understanding of professional roles, available community resources, and opportunities for comprehensive care. Looking ahead, FCS will continue to be relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic draws on and many seniors remain socially isolated. The team will develop quantitative outcome metrics to better understand the impact of its work. The interprofessional, community-based education model, exemplified by the FCS interprofessional project, will be developed as a generalizable model for ensuring quality of care and best practice. Funding none