Has anyone considered discontinuing (even short term) the use of college volunteers (and/or all teens) due to their higher infection and transmission rate of H1N1? 

Chris Delaughter

Rockingham Memorial

Harrisonburg VA

I pulled volunteers out of the ER a few months ago b/c of the high number of patients with flu like symptoms in that area.  Other than that we have made no changes. 

We have limited our teen volunteers.  They are not able to go into patient areas. They can work information desk and gift shop.  Our hospital has gone with a temporary visitor restriction policy of no one under 18.

Our whole Richmond region (several competing health systems) have joined together to restrict our visitation policies in tandem.  No one under 18 and only two visitors at a time are allowed in patient areas.  We have been discouraging underage visitors from being in the building, but are not currently barring them from the public spaces (main lobby, cafe, chapel, etc.).

In line with this, we have withdrawn teen volunteers from patient room visits (so no discharging, no hospitality cart, etc.)  They are however still serving at info desks and in some units as "behind the scenes" if we know they have had immunizations.