Clinical care extender

Clinical Care Extenders (CCE) are volunteers that work in hospital settings as interns. Volunteers enter the program to complete 280 hours of service which is done in a few rotations in different areas of the hospital to get a behind-the-scenes experience of a health care provider, providing direct patient care. The period of work can vary from 6 months to over one year, at a rate of a few hours per week. Volunteers can be undergraduate or graduate students or professionals, or in the case of the "Red Shirt Program", high school students.^[1]

The CCE program was devised by, and is administered by, the COPE Health Solutions corporation^[2] to "help hospitals and other health care organizations grow their workforce"; the program provides volunteer workers to augment "patient support" hours at lower cost than hiring staff.^[3] CCEs are selected from applicants who have a "serious interest" in pursuing a healthcare career.^[2] After completion of the program, CCEs are "available for immediate hire."^[3]

The program is implemented in the Southern California area; three locations are UCLA^[4], Riverside Community Hospital.^[5], and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

According to COPE, eligibility requirements for Clinical Care Extenders include: interns must be 18 years or older and accepted, currently enrolled in, or graduated from an accredited college or university; they must complete pre-rraining paperwork as well as attend an "Immunization Open House" and submit required immunization/test records; finally, individuals must attend mandatory 3-day training and pass a post-training exam.

COPE's CCE scheduling requirements include serving a minimum of one four-hour shift each week (most departments are open 7am-11pm), attending all bi-monthly CCE meetings, and accumulating a total of 280 hours of internship hours.

See also

• Hospital volunteer

References

1. ^ Ibrahim, Noelle (November 15, 2006). "Red Shirt program gives student inside look at medicine". nctimes.com. North County Times. http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/san-marcos/article_988603b4-f441-5e0d-8791-4f0132c3017c.html. Retrieved June 26, 2010. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Clinical Care Extender (CCE) Internship Program". copehealthsolutions.org. COPE Health Solutions, Los Angeles. http://copehealthsolutions.org/hwt/cce.html. Retrieved June 26, 2010. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Health Workforce Transformation: For Hospitals". copehealthsolutions.org. COPE Health Solutions. http://copehealthsolutions.org/hwt/hospitals.html. Retrieved June 26, 2010. 
4. ^ "The Care Extender Internship Program". uclahealth.org. University of California at Los Angeles. http://www.uclahealth.org/body_volunteer.cfm?id=74. Retrieved June 26, 2010. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ For one UC Riverside student, the road to medical school runs through the Bourns College of Engineering(press release). University of California at Riverside, March 14, 2008. Archived from the original 2010-07-08.