Every Medicare-certified hospice runs a volunteer program. The Conditions of Participation require volunteers to provide at least 5% of total patient-care hours (42 CFR 418.78). Volunteer coordinators already know the hard part is not the hours. It's finding work for volunteers that the patient and family will actually remember.
Legacy work fits that need. Families say a recorded life story is one of the few things they still have years later. Most programs run it with a notebook or a phone, or not at all, because writing up a life story takes hours that nobody has.
What a visit looks like
The volunteer brings a tablet or uses the family's. Porchlight reads a question about the patient's life aloud in a warm voice: where they grew up, the first job, how they met, what they want the grandchildren to know. The patient talks and Porchlight records. When the patient is tired, the pace slows down, and the volunteer can stop at any point. Ten minutes is a good visit. So is forty.
- No typing and no setup for the patient. One large button and questions read aloud.
- Pace settings for early, middle and later-stage illness. In the slowest setting the volunteer moves things along by hand.
- The family can add stories, too. A daughter can record "the story Dad always told", and it joins the rest.
What the family keeps
- Every recording, playable and downloadable, on a private family page.
- A transcript of each story in the patient's own words.
- A printable biography, "The Story So Far", built from the stories.
- A way for the family to record voice replies the patient can hear while there is still time.
After a death, that private page is a bereavement touchpoint your team can point families back to: you still have Mom's stories, here.
What it is not
Porchlight is not Dignity Therapy, not therapy of any kind, and not a medical record. The questions come from a fixed library. The AI does not pick them and does not judge the answers. It transcribes the speech and tidies the text. We don't sign BAAs yet, so the pilot runs on a private account that belongs to the family, not on your chart.
The pilot
It's free while we learn. Pick three to five patients whose families want it. I set up the accounts myself and train your volunteers over a 30-minute video call. Afterwards, tell me honestly whether it earned a place in your program.
Run a pilot with your volunteers
Patrick Donahue, founder. Write and tell me about your program. I answer every email myself.
Email Patrick See a sample family pageMore reading: Legacy work at the end of life: for hospice teams and chaplains (what the Dignity Therapy research did and did not find), and For volunteers and students.