question---How many?

Specialties School

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I am the only one district wide of about 700-750 students with approximately 350 elementary. My office is based at the elementary the middle school and high school handle the majority of things at the other campuses unless they need my help. I am responsible for all immunizations and screenings per Texas state law and entering this information. The first semster of this year I have seen over 1,300 students, middle school has seen 160, and High school has seen about 130. I have done over 550 vision hearing and scoliosis screenings. What kind of numbers are you seeing?

Sounds about right.

Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

You have assessed 1300 students?

Do you have a huge number of diabetics? Or other chronically ill children who need meds? Are you counting those 550 screenings in that 1300?

By my math that's around 15-20 daily, yes?

Specializes in pediatrics, school nursing.

I have around 200 elementary students in my school, and by my estimation, I had around 1000 encounters, not including routine meds and screenings, between September and January. Screenings (height, weight, vision, and hearing) have probably amounted to around 500 encounters.

Specializes in school nursing.

I just provided a "nursing office breakdown" to administration to share with staff, because I think there is a huge misunderstanding of how busy my office is!

I have just under 500 students in my school of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. So far, there have been 3,300 visits to the nurse (with my 8th grade class being responsible for half of those). This does not include hearing, vision, BMI, or scoliosis screenings. And my work towards ensuring immunization compliance is not represented by my office visit numbers. This works out to just over 50 visits a day, I work alone (no other nurse or unlicensed personnel).

Specializes in School Nursing.
14 hours ago, shark_nurse14 said:

I just provided a "nursing office breakdown" to administration to share with staff, because I think there is a huge misunderstanding of how busy my office is!

https://www.nasn.org/nasn/research/everystudentcounts/school-nurse-capacity-building

I have started using the "Data points health office visit tracking form" this school year. It breaks things down to # of visits per day, how many returned to class/sent home/called EMS. Each day is then calculated into weekly, and subsequently monthly numbers. My administration did not realize exactly how many students I see regularly until I started sending them a report each month (I do not include daily meds, nor mandated screenings on my report). This may or may not help, but it's at least something to consider.

Specializes in School Nursing.

I have around 1500 students. I see approximately 15 kiddos a day, not including medications. I've screened around 1500 as well for vision.

Those numbers sound about right.

They're not seeing as many students in the middle school and high school because either they're not keeping accurate counts or the teachers just know that there's not a nurse there and have to deal with the petty things on their own.

I'm at a TX highschool that holds ~2,300 students. Here are my numbers since the start of school in August:

189 hearing screenings

281 medical procedures done

1094 office visits for illness or injury

5 Lice exams

96 physicals

29 pregnancy related visits

522 prescription administrations

197 vision exams

Sooooo no, never a dull moment here ?

Specializes in school nurse.
On 1/15/2020 at 7:37 PM, shark_nurse14 said:

I just provided a "nursing office breakdown" to administration to share with staff, because I think there is a huge misunderstanding of how busy my office is!

I have just under 500 students in my school of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. So far, there have been 3,300 visits to the nurse (with my 8th grade class being responsible for half of those). This does not include hearing, vision, BMI, or scoliosis screenings. And my work towards ensuring immunization compliance is not represented by my office visit numbers. This works out to just over 50 visits a day, I work alone (no other nurse or unlicensed personnel).

Are you able to create a 'case management' visit in your EHR? I've been able to do that to account for time spent chasing down doctor's offices for PEs, parents for vaccinations, etc. This makes your stats/reports more accurate re: workflow.

Specializes in School nursing.
On 1/15/2020 at 7:37 PM, shark_nurse14 said:

I just provided a "nursing office breakdown" to administration to share with staff, because I think there is a huge misunderstanding of how busy my office is!

I have just under 500 students in my school of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. So far, there have been 3,300 visits to the nurse (with my 8th grade class being responsible for half of those). This does not include hearing, vision, BMI, or scoliosis screenings. And my work towards ensuring immunization compliance is not represented by my office visit numbers. This works out to just over 50 visits a day, I work alone (no other nurse or unlicensed personnel).

This sounds like my day! Also 500 students, grades 7-12. Average visits per day is 34, though that number has been creeping up and up and I've been here 7 years! 55% of the visits are grades 7 or 8. This does not include any screenings.

(Health needs are shifting, but what is adding to my visit count is the growing mental health needs of the students. We have a great counselor, but they are one person and I help with overflow. But many students I see just need a break really, which is a different thread...)

I run a visit report for my boss once a month to also show how busy I am as well. My boss thankfully is very supportive and told me last check-in my valuable I am to my school.

Specializes in kids.
6 hours ago, Jedrnurse said:

Are you able to create a 'case management' visit in your EHR? I've been able to do that to account for time spent chasing down doctor's offices for PEs, parents for vaccinations, etc. This makes your stats/reports more accurate re: workflow.

I added a student follow up code and denoted email , faxing, telephone conversations. Amazing how much time during the day I spend doing that!!

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