Massachusetts School Nurses

[MHDNURSE]

Do you have "Standing Orders" from a District MD for OTCs (Tylenol, Motrin, Hydrocortisone, Benadryl)?

Currently I have standing orders for Epi (for emergency use only). For any OTCs I have parents sign a permission form authorizing me to administer, but not any orders from MD. I am thinking I need either standing orders from our MD, or parents need to have their MD authorize. What say you? What are you doing in your schools?

ETA: Our District MD left so we have no MD right now so want to make sure we have correct documentation, etc.

[Amethya]

We have no MD (Texas) so we only accept OTC meds by MD and parent permission. I would suggest this as well until you get a new MD for your district.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

I do. I was also just at the latest Nurse Leader medication training. It was time for me to re-up.

You cannot have standing orders without a district MD. To give any meds, you must have a doctor's order (parents alone for OTC is no go if you are a public school in MA) and you cannot legally delegate the giving of these medications to anyone but a RN unless you have registered for delegation rights with the state. PM me if you'd like :).

Thanks Jen, that is what my assumption was.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

Thanks Jen, that is what my assumption was.

Go with your gut :).

That being said, having the standing orders is great sometimes. And sometimes it isn't.

But my standing order Epi is worth its weight in gold.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I worked per diem at a boarding school in MA 5 years ago and we had a TON of standing orders from the school MD- Tylenol, Motrin, Tums, Zantac, Zyrtec, Claritin, Cough Medicine, a whole bunch of topicals and probably more that I don't remember off the top of my head.

[scuba nurse, BSN, MSN, RN]

Yes we have standing orders for all those meds you listed. But we also have a district MD.

Thanks everyone. Thankfully our school MD agreed to stay on for this year. I am working on writing up standing orders for each med we have that is OTC and our emergency Epi for this school year and he will sign everything so we are in compliance :)