NO ONE DIES ALONE

Alleviating Hospital Suffering at Death

CONTEXT SUMMARY
Every day in hospitals around the world, patients die,
alone and without any human contact. Upon meeting
with staff at the University of Washington Medical
Center, it became clear that while there was a need to
alleviate this suffering in the hospital, there was little
knowledge of how to combat this issue. This is when I
discovered the No One Dies Alone program, a model
that provides dying, isolated patients with a human
volunteer until the time of their death. Throughout the
course of this project, I have done in depth research on
the creation, implementation, recruitment, and
sustainability of this hospital palliative care programs
in order to instruct other hospitals on how to create a
NODA program.  death-changing program.
Isolated death in a hospital setting is a problem
facing many people today. To help alleviate this
problem I have done research through an in depth
literature review as well as an informational survey
that was sent nationwide. The results of these two
summarized that in the creation of a NODA
program, volunteer support, staff support, and
proper training, a NODA program can be well
implemented. From this, I have created a guideline
to take to hospitals in the effort to convince more
healthcare providers to establish a NODA branch.
With this, hospitals can benefit the lives of dying
patients, while having an easy time creating this
 

METHODS
For this project, I conducted an in-depth review of
published literature and informational survey to all
existing NODA branches that I could contact. In total, I
read hours of literature to discover the best methods
of implementing a hospital program, as well as
recieved feedback from 14 NODA branches scattered
throughout the nation. With these results, best
practices and recommendations were gathered to
create a guideline convincing hospitals to create the
NODA program, as well as an aid in how to create this
program. 

FINDINGS
Through this outreach, I discovered the best practices to
create a program, such as using staff coordination and
well placed marketing and recruitment of volunteers.
Training volunteers is best done when an extra grief
counseling training is added onto the normal volunteer
training program, in order to assist new volunteers of
the harsh environment. Volunteers are also sustained
through regular meetings, and check ups on the mental
health of a volunteer. Patients who qualify are identified
as people who willingly consent to having a visitor, while
having no other resources and are in the last 24-72
hours of life.  creation and implementation of a NODA program.
CONCLUSION
The creation of a NODA program requires aid from
multiple parties. While this program may be
difficult to establish, the creation and
implementation of a program is achievable, and
can be done through the cooperative efforts of
staff and volunteers in order to change the way
lonely patients die in a hospital setting. Through
my research, I have been able to create a
document to present to hospitals, in which I lay
out the reasons for creating a NODA program, as
well as a guideline to assist a hospital in the
 

Derek Dragseth