Student Health Info..how much do you know?

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

Ok, here at my private school I am the only nurse running the health clinic. Each year at the start of school I have parents fill out a "Health Clinic Information Card" on each student. This card has information such as the student's name, address, birthdate, all contact info, student weight, medical info including all allergies (meds, food, latex, insects), medical hx (they can check asthma, dm, chicken pox, seizures, & freq nosebleeds here), and other conditions. There is also a portion where parents can give permission for me to administer certain OTC meds that are stocked here in the clinic (APAP, advil, tums, antihistamines, etc).

**In the "other conditions" section, parents are asked to list any medications taken and special conditions. My desire is that they list prescription meds a kid takes whether it's given here or taken at home regularly. I find that they typically ignore this portion and write nothing, even if their kid regularly takes a slew of meds at home every.single.day.

SO, does your school require that parents give up this kind of information? Say, for example, a child takes Zoloft every morning at 6 a.m. before school. Would you like to know that? Most of my parents do NOT provide that information on things like anti-depressants, allergy meds, even seizure meds.

My principal is really pushing that I find a way to strongly encourage parents to give this info. He says what if there were an emergency and EMS needs to know what's on board? I say I'd also like to know for interaction purposes. It's also nice to know when a kid's starting a new med and I'm looking at mysterious symptoms in a kid and wondering if they're side effects.

But how logical is it to think that parents are going to keep me updated on every single med change on every single student throughout the school year??? OR is a parent going to think it's a privacy violation when I ask what they're giving their kid during non-school hours?

Does your school require medication info on your kids?

Ex: We had a student that kinda wigged out during a weekend rehearsal. Principal says mother delivered "meds" that student had "forgotten to take" that morning. This is the incident that spurred this entire situation. Anyway, principal contacted mom asking about meds and how we needed this info...blah, blah, blah. Mom says she works for public schools and this is NOT their policy but she still gives us the info anyway. If I push for this personal info in the fall will I be going too far?

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"SO, does your school require that parents give up this kind of information? Say, for example, a child takes Zoloft every morning at 6 a.m. before school. Would you like to know that? Most of my parents do NOT provide that information on things like anti-depressants, allergy meds, even seizure meds...."

YES, the school asks the parents for that type of information.

Yes, I would love to know what meds they are on even while not in school. I think it would greatly improve my ability to take care of the kids, and if there was a true emergency, well, yea.

I have found out in my very short time as a school nurse that parents will do exactly what parents WANT to do. Maybe a friendly reminder about med permission/doctor order forms for any and all meds, and how information for you means better care for their child, but other than that, no.

I am up to HERE with the parents today, so I may be overly pessimistic.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

yeah - parents do what they want to do then get ticked with us when we didn't know that their student had an allergy. (uhhh... you didn't inform us and neither did your perfectly capable sixth grader!!)

Anyhow...I tell parents that it is helpful that we know all medications that they take regularly and have prescribed to them and to update me as needed throughout the year - not just in Sept. If a parent comes in to give a missed dose, it has to be given in my office and I ask what the parent is giving. It's my school - the student is under my watch for the next few hours - yes, i deserve to know what that student was just given.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Oncology, School Nursing, OB.

Our school does not REQUIRE medication info but we do have a section on their health card where we request it. I agree it's helpful to know. Some parents do fill it out and some don't even if the student is on something. I really don't know how you can actually force parents to give you that info though. I would write something up strongly encouraging parents to let you know stating its in the child's best interest in case of emergency, so you can watch for side effects, etc and that info may be shared with teachers unless parents request it to be confidential. However, it's truly the parent's right not to inform you if they choose not to.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Again, I comment that I do not do school nsg. But in reading OP's post, might I suggest that maybe that yearly questionnaire might be too long? I could see parents becoming quite bored, or rather 'who cares'-ish and they'll just bypass those sections at the end.

Maybe send out another shorter questionnaire with just the specific info you desire with your explanation. Like split up the info requested into individual questionnaires.

Just a thought...

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Specializes in Community Health/School Nursing.

We do have a place on our form for parents to write down what/if any medications are taken at home. Some parents will write down 10 different meds and others will not admit to anything even though I know their child is no medication at home...like for ADHD. What medication was the parent delivering? And by delivering do you mean handing off to another staff member for student or coming to give the medication to the student? I have to know if a parent brings in medication and is wanting their child called up to the front office so they can give their child the medication. I need to know any possible side effects to watch for in case they react after the parent leaves.

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Specializes in School nursing.

I ask this information and have shortened my health form (twice!) from an original five pages (!) to one page back and front. Do I get the info I always need? Nope. As others put it, parents will share what they WANT to share, period.

Since I do deal with older kids (7th-12th), I actually find out more info from the student him/herself. And if I do and I have the time, I call the parent to confirm that student does indeed take that medication at home and ask if I can update his/her health card.

Of course, on the flip side, I also have the parents that share everything, and I mean EVERYTHING...

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I'll give you my practices on this both as a parent and a School Nurse. I do have a form parents fill out each year kind of a "what may have changed since your last physical" and there is a section for medications. For an IEP or students I ask the parents for a list of any meds taken at home or any changes to meds during the annual meetings. I get good information that way from the IEP and 504 students because it seems the request is more official.

As a parent I have a child who takes medicine each night before bed which is out of his system before school in the morning. He never takes it anytime other than at bedtime so I do not think the school needs to know about it. For my son's privacy, his physician and I decided that we are not putting it on school forms. If he goes on an overnight school trip then they need to know because he will be taking it on the trip but otherwise it's not necessary. A lot of thought went into his privacy rights vs. the school's desire to have full information. It was not just a flippant I'm not telling them.

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Specializes in School nursing.
I'll give you my practices on this both as a parent and a School Nurse. I do have a form parents fill out each year kind of a "what may have changed since your last physical" and there is a section for medications. For an IEP or students I ask the parents for a list of any meds taken at home or any changes to meds during the annual meetings. I get good information that way from the IEP and 504 students because it seems the request is more official.

As a parent I have a child who takes medicine each night before bed which is out of his system before school in the morning. He never takes it anytime other than at bedtime so I do not think the school needs to know about it. For my son's privacy, his physician and I decided that we are not putting it on school forms. If he goes on an overnight school trip then they need to know because he will be taking it on the trip but otherwise it's not necessary. A lot of thought went into his privacy rights vs. the school's desire to have full information. It was not just a flippant I'm not telling them.

You are likely a very easy to reach parent, which is awesome.

But when the parent is not very easy to reach and I have to call 911 for their child, having an up-to-date medication list can be very helpful (especially even when a parent can be reached, but does/cannot not meet us at the ED for 5+ hours). I see the flip-side of both and respect a parent's want of sharing information as it is very private stuff.

I've also had students come to my office asking about missed medications at home, complaining of a symptom that could be a possible side effect of a medication taken at home, or bearing an unlabeled biggie with medication in it and I have no clue about it as it isn't on the student's health form. Of course, this is a whole other issue...;)

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Specializes in kids.

We all can only do our best and hope for the rest!

In an ideal world, we would have the info we needed in an emergent situation. But that is just not going to happen all the time. We make our assessment with what is in front of us, advocate for our kids and get them the help they need.

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I've also had students come to my office asking about missed medications at home, complaining of a symptom that could be a possible side effect of a medication taken at home, or bearing an unlabeled biggie with medication in it and I have no clue about it as it isn't on the student's health form. Of course, this is a whole other issue...;)

Absolutely!!!

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We use health forms and emergency cards. Sometimes information is on one form but not another. I audit to make sure information listed on one form makes it to the other before it is filed. Parents can choose to share or not. At the end of the day, we can only make decisions based on information shared and what is gleaned from proper assessment skills. If a parent doesn't tell us, what are we to do? Do your best.

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