Can a school nurse take blood pressure

Specialties School

Published

So its too early to call the school and the doctors office, so I thought I would come to you guys. Can a school nurse take blood pressure? My daughter has had issues in the past and I have a few concerns. I will be calling her pediatrician as soon as the office opens, but I'm just curious if I called the school nurse if she would be able to do a read on her? I have no idea what the scope of a school nurse is and I don't want to look like an idiot when I call her. Any help you guys could give would be appreciated!

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Specializes in nurseline,med surg, PD.

If the school nurse IS a nurse of course she can take a bllod pressure.

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Specializes in ED, School Nurse.

I take blood pressures all the time in my school nurse practice.

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

The only issue I've seen in elementary is if the nurse doesn't have proper sized cuffs or if it's a non-nurse health attendant. My son's nurse just asked written permission to communicate with his private physician for care coordination.

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absolutely!

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Specializes in kids.

You betcha! And what Beachy said, it is important that the nurse have several size cuffs so that the measurement is correct.

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.
The only issue I've seen in elementary is if the nurse doesn't have proper sized cuffs or if it's a non-nurse health attendant. My son's nurse just asked written permission to communicate with his private physician for care coordination.
...my goodness yes!! How many times has hypertension been cured with the correct size blood pressure cuff!!???
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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health Nurse.
If the school nurse IS a nurse of course she can take a bllod pressure.

Yes! A lot of times parents think the Health Tech or Health Assistant is a Nurse. Sometimes the Health Tech thinks they are a Nurse. Not always, but had an issue with that before. At my last District the Health Tech office's were called the Nurse's Office (and the passes said Pass to the Nurse) so parents and staff assumed they were Nurses and referred to them as such.

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Thanks all! Contacted the school and got the same response. I just didn't want to sound stupid by asking since I had never had to ask for anything more than how high the temp was. Appreciate the responses!!!

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