Sharing Health Information with Teachers

Specialties School

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How obligated are we as nurses to share health information with school teachers and classroom aides? The LPN in our school needed to take a blood pressure for a child and the classroom aide demanded to know why she was taking his blood pressure? The LPN responded that she had a physician's order but that wasn't an acceptable answer for this staff person. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank You.

Having worked in schools I will tell you teachers do NOT understand privacy the way we do. The LPN responded in an appropriate way. The teacher's aide was out of line. Educational staff should be given some type of inservice to address these issues and say why nurses can't share detailed health information with them. Teachers are often concerned with disruptions to their classroom time. If we can assure them that our interventions won't disrupt the class, hopefully they won't have a cow.

That really depends. In the schools there are differences. For example, in the schools where I worked, there was staff that had been trained to administer medications and cover the clinic. Some worked directly with the students and were invaluable in their care. All the principles and assistant principles were trained and ready to hop into action when necessary.

There were very ill students that everyone knew and kept an eye on. say a diabetic, or someone with peanut allergies, so I found there to be very fluid boundaries. Mind you, I prefer everything be specific for everyone's protection, but in the real world it doesn't always work that way.

My problem is frequently the opposite. I have teachers giving me information that the parents give them. They think it's important that the teachers know, but never think to call the clinic and let us know!

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