General Food Allergy Action Plan for students with unknown allergies.

[Trueblood83]

Hello all!

I am a school nurse that is split between more than one school. This means I am not on campus everyday. So I am making up some general emergency plans (asthma, seizures, etc) to e-mail to the staff along with educational material. After I get my health inventories back for the year I will make student specific emergency plans and give those out to the teachers that need them. Until then I am giving out the general emergency plans so that staff will have something to go by when I am not there.

My question is regarding food allergies. Would you give the staff a General Food Allergy Action Plan? I know that a lot of first time reactions to food can happen during school hours, and I thought that it might be a good idea for the staff to know what to do. My only hesitation is that some food allergy reactions are similar to other problems (i.e. gastrointestinal problems). So I am unsure what I should put on this plan. Should I only include potentially life threatening reactions (i.e. involving the throat, lungs, or heart)? If so, at what point would I instruct them to call 911? A lot of mild symptoms can quickly turn into a life threatening situation. Any thoughts would be appreciated. :) So far in my draft I have instructed to call the parent for mild symptoms, and to call 911 for the potentially life threatening symptoms.

[geocachingRN]

Can't really go wrong with this website: http://www.foodallergy.org/

and downloadable resources including care plans and ppt

http://www.foodallergy.org/section/helpful-information

Also NASNs new green book has some great resources. It's now on CD and easily modified for each student : http://www.csno.org/docs/Post%204-7-2011%20Promo%20Green%20Book.pdf

Lastly, great reading when it's soooooow http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749%2810%2901566-6/fulltext