MUSICIANS ON CALL INC

The primary goal of Musicians On Call is to use live music to address the adverse side-effects of hospitalization for patients of all ages and medical diagnosis. Through the delivery of weekly, biweekly, and monthly virtual and bedside programs, MOC provides the benefits of live music toward aiding the recovery and improving the hospital experience for over hundreds of thousands of patients, family members, and caregivers each year.

The Bedside Performance Program deploys a national network of over 800 talented musicians to hospital facilities in 20 major cities to deliver patient-requested songs right at their bedside. These consistent bedside music performances provide the familiar and well documented benefits of live music, including stress relief, mood improvement, and pain distraction; helping support a full recovery process. As one young patient summarized, “Often times when hospitalized, my physical state gets triaged over my mental. Being in the hospital and having people and programs come with the goal of cheering patients up, having experiences that are not about sickness and illness, but about joy and happiness, give our souls and spirits the energy to keep fighting with our bodies for our health.” Across two decades, Musicians On Call has brought these transformative programs and the uplifting benefits of music to over 900,000 individuals in hospitals across the country.

Patient-preferred live music models, like the Bedside Performance Program, have been recognized through research for their enhanced impact and consistency in improving the hospital experience for patients. A 2016 study in the Western Journal of Nursing Research noted, “Patients listening to the preferred music reported a significantly greater reduction in agitation compared with the effect seen during the classical ‘relaxation’ music intervention.” These results reinforce the same data and perspectives that MOC collected from a survey of patients served at its hospital partners from 2016-2018. Through this survey, 99% of patients reported a positive mood after the performance, with 96% rating the program a 10/10, and 100% agreeing that they would like another visit during their hospital stay.

For its healthcare partners, Musicians On Call offers a way to inject the hospital environment with the transformative power of live music. MOC's Bedside Performance Program enlists local volunteer musicians, with the assistance of volunteer guides, to give live in-room performances for patients undergoing treatment or who are unable to leave their hospital beds. The centerpiece of MOC’s Bedside Performance Program is the diverse and talented pool of volunteer musicians who not only deliver music programs, but convey the deep-rooted musical influences and genres of the local communities they serve, which greatly impact those patients who are also largely made up of local and regional community members.

Musicians On Call's Virtual Bedside Performance Program utilizes video conferencing technology to broadcast live performances to those in need of remote, live music through one-on-one intimate performances and hospital-wide concerts. Because of this unique setup, volunteers and those dialing in can be located all over the country, and multiple hospitals can join, enabling the music to reach hundreds of patients at once. From March 2020, more than 230,000 people participated in the Virtual Program. MOC also developed virtual programs to make music more accessible to patients of many different backgrounds, including launching El Programa Virtual en Español (Spanish Language Virtual Program), adding subtitles to all virtual programming and featuring a performance signer during a program especially for the deaf community.

In addition, Musicians On Call offers its Music Pharmacy Program, which leverages leading digital music technologies to offer whole music libraries to patients, and Project Playback, which delivers musicians and live recording equipment that give patients an opportunity to record their own music within the hospital environment.

Musicians On Call has leveraged two decades worth of experience and growth to build a Bedside Performance Program model that can quickly and economically scale to new cities and markets across the country. The organization deploys a volunteer base that features hundreds of talented musicians from 20 major markets, including America's most iconic music cities such as Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, and Chicago. Patients encounter a variety of musical styles including country, classic rock, r&b, children’s songs, and folk music. Ultimately, MOC programs are leveraging the strength of the local music community to directly serve fellow community members receiving life-altering treatment in healthcare facilities. Additionally, no other organization has the expertise and resumé for featuring award winning artists in hospital, with previous artist partnerships including Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Ed Sheeran, Kelly Clarkson, Gavin Degraw, Peter Frampton, Blake Shelton, and many others.

MOC has been recognized for this innovative approach and significant impact by national industry and media leaders like Salesforce, CBS Sunday Morning, Pandora and The Wall Street Journal. Thus far MOC has successfully established 100 music programs that serve thousands of patients across 20 major US markets annually.

Musicians On Call is distinguished as both the only national organization providing live bedside music to hospital patients and the largest single provider of music programs, in general, to hospitals across the country; serving over 900,000 individuals in over 20 cities throughout two decades of operation, including over 43,000 Veterans and 65,000 children in hospitals.

In addition to its service to patients and hospital facilities, Musicians On Call has been recognized for its exceptional operational and employment practices, being awarded the 6th “Best Place to Work” in the US by The Nonprofit Times in 2019.

Musicians On Call will be transforming the way music is delivered to hospitals by developing innovative program infrastructure where hospital facilities and local musicians, in any community, are able to connect directly to deliver live music, through its Bedside Performance Program, to patients in need. The benefits and impact of this new innovative approach are ranging, including increasing programming for underserved populations and rural areas, increasing the frequency of hospital visits in 20 existing partner cities, increasing the diversity of musicians that visit each facility, and removing language and geographic barriers by on-boarding more local musicians in each community. And, ultimately, this new program capability will allow Musicians On Call to live up to its name, making programs truly “on call.”

With COVID restrictions still in place in hospitals in 2021, Musicians On Call’s (MOC) Virtual Bedside Performance Program remained the organization’s primary tool for bringing music into hospitals. Thanks to the Virtual Program, Musicians On Call has been one of the few charities still able to provide programs directly to patients and caregivers in hospitals during this time. Many hospitals can join virtual programs at once, enabling the music to reach hundreds of patients at the same time. Prior to 2020, MOC reached nearly 10,000 people through the virtual program. In 2021, more than 110,000 patients, families and caregivers enjoyed music through the program. The number of hospitals participating and the frequency of these programs has scaled considerably, now reaching adult and pediatric patients, homebound seniors, VA hospitals and hospices, as well as behavioral health and memory care facilities. Nearly 100 well-known recording artists participated in MOC’s Virtual Programs, including Dolly Parton, Darius Rucker, Reba McEntire, Peter Frampton, Olivia Rodrigo, Luis Fonsi, Kelsea Ballerini and many more.

The demand for the virtual programming is growing, and, in response, MOC’s team integrated its proprietary platform into the program model in order to efficiently expand to more hospitals. Hospitals share a unique code with all patients, who can log on from any device to enjoy live music. MOC is further developing the portal to offer more on-demand music programs in the near future.