PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – The two young women in blue sweaters are making the rounds at The Miriam Hospital, popping in and out of patients’ rooms with cheerful greetings.

The women do not discuss medical treatment with their bedridden patients or dispense doses of medication. Neither doctors nor nurses, they have a much simpler purpose: to make the sick more comfortable, to make an inconvenient hospital stay as convenient as possible.

When the pair visits Bob Donnelly, they ask if there’s anything else he needs. A magazine, maybe? Sure enough, Donnelly, 58 and from Cranston, takes them up on their offer. The two women head to the hospital’s gift shop and return carrying a copy of “ESPN The Magazine” with a scowling David Beckham on the cover.

The women, paid interns, are part of a new program at the hospital intended to make patients happier with their stay. The program doesn’t change any aspect of patients’ medical care. Instead, it focuses on the details of “normal” life – magazines, meals and conversation, for example – aiming to relieve anxiety and make the hospital stay less cumbersome.

Matthew Blade, director of patient satisfaction at Miriam, which is affiliated with Brown Medical School, said the internship program is part of a broader effort within health care to make patients feel more human.

“We’re trying to take away the sterilization of a hospital,” said Blade.

Blade said the hospital’s surveys showed patients were generally happy with their care at Miriam. But when patients were asked if their spiritual and emotional needs were being met, and if the staff was sensitive to the inconvenience of a hospital stay, patients tended to rate the hospital lower than staff and administrators wanted.

The program’s goal is to improve those numbers. It began in June with 11 interns, and focuses on the non-medical aspects of patients’ care. The interns are expected to offer bubbly companionship at the bedside and make sure the patients have what they need – be it a cup of coffee or a pair of eyeglasses – to be comfortable.

Interns have been known to buy balloons and cards on a patient’s birthday. An intern prepared a wedding anniversary celebration for an elderly patient. They have bought fans and snacks and befriended a dying leukemia patient.

The interns have more responsibility than old-fashioned candy stripers, hospital aides whose duties would have included delivering mail and flowers to patients, Blade said.

If interns see a nurse act rudely to a patient, they will notify a supervisor. If interns come upon a patient who had to wait too long for a procedure, they’ll supply a $10 gift certificate to the hospital gift shop as a way to make amends. Interns also smooth the way when paperwork is involved, helping patients through the discharge process, for example.

“Part of our job as the interns, patient relation interns, is to make that patient’s day any way we can – and I mean any way we can,” he added.

Donnelly, the patient who requested the sports magazine, said the interns “boost your spirits.”

“They come in here, they have good humor. They want to help,” he said.

It’s also an opportunity for the interns – aspiring doctors and nurses among them – to hone their bedside manner.

“I have never had an opportunity to work in a hospital or shadow a doctor or anything like that,” said Kristina Prachanronarong, 20, a pre-med student at Brown University.

Sara Stanger, a student at Johnson & Wales University, joined the program because she thought it would offer good experience in human interaction for her ultimate career goal of public relations.

“There’s certain patients that you just find yourself thinking about on your days off,” Stanger said.

The program is also an inexpensive way to ensure happier patients. The interns are paid $10 an hour, less than the wage of a nurse or trained medical professional.

Some similar programs, involving patient advocates or representatives, exist around the country.

Duke University in Durham, N.C., offers a part-time health care internship. Students volunteer for several hours a week helping hospital staff and performing much the same function as the interns at Miriam, said Brenda Radford, director of guest services at Duke University Hospital.

Blade said survey results are not available yet to gauge the program’s success. But he said he has received informal feedback from patients and their families to suggest that it’s working. Though the program originated as a pilot initiative ending this month, the hospital plans to keep it running in some way, Blade said.

Rosa Morales, 25, a Spanish-speaking intern who studies sign language on the side and is not in college, said she will be staying with the program full-time.

On a recent Tuesday, Morales and another intern entered the room of a bedridden elderly woman with gray hair and a tube running beneath her nose.

She apologizes to the patient for not knowing her name and asks how she’s feeling.

Then, before she leaves, Morales offers a suggestion:

“If you forget out names, just ask for the girls in the blue sweaters.”

AP-ES-08-26-05 1527EDT