What will school nursing look like after this pandemic?

Specialties School

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Had a zoom school nursing meeting this morning and we were talking about many things that might change when we are finally back in school- from new fever protocols, isolation rooms for kids, not allowing teachers to randomly send kids down to us if they think they might have a fever, etc. Curious what your thoughts are and also what protocols have already changed.

Specializes in kids.

We have 3 main entrances to our building, trying to picture temps prior to entry

-crowding as they check in

-staggered entry times and individual folks have different times

-teachers who "forget"

-maintaining confidentiality...

-oh, and being avail for kids!!

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Specializes in School nursing.
On 5/14/2020 at 11:37 AM, ruby_jane said:

I didn't think about the consequences of a nurse having to stay out for 14 days post-exposure either so YAY for the HIVE BRAIN.

This was one of my first thoughts.

I said we need to have back-ups for every staff members in case one needs to be isolated/quarantined per DPH. How many of us have easy access to properly training sub nurses if this happens?

However, I wonder if what happens for us is we get treated like frontline works and are considered constantly exposed and to be working unless we are symptomatic.

But this assumes we have access to needed PPE (I am trying now to locate N95s mask, but you can guess how that is going) and frequent access to testing.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, psychiatric, rehabilitation.
On 4/28/2020 at 9:32 PM, kellbell23 said:

I don't know how to keep kindergartners 6 feet apart! 

This.

My son will start kindergarten and he wants to hug and play tag. We discussed not to "cause of the virus" and he is getting better.

However he can only tolerate a mask for a walmart trip at most. HOW will these kids last 8 hrs? I have got pressure sores (stage II) on my ears wearing my N95 for my 12 hr shifts that turn into 16 hrs.

I just want the kids to be kids again and the little old geriatrics to enjoy their golden years.?

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On 4/22/2020 at 5:45 PM, tining said:
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Hopefully the parents that we have told to not send their students to school with fever really get it now. I have told one parent 4 (FOUR) times in 2 years, after catching student with fever, to not send to school because of this very thing.

I'm so thankful I've retired! One way we got around this problem was to mark the student absent in the computer for the day sent home and the next day. The teachers were not able to change this, so they would call the attendance office to say the student was there. That way we knew immediately and the child was sent back to the clinic, parent called and had to come to pick up to adhere to the 24 hour rule. They got upset, but that's life.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

What's the recommendations re water fountains?

grammy1 - clever solution, but sad that you had to resort to such.

As always, good luck & good wishes to you SNs. And my prayers.

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Specializes in School nursing.
2 minutes ago, amoLucia said:

What's the recommendations re water fountains?

grammy1 - clever solution, but sad that you had to resort to such.

As always, good luck & good wishes to you SNs. And my prayers.

In MA, not to use them. And if you do, you need cups available and no actual sipping allowed and to treat them and clean them like high touch surfaces.

In my school, we are installing bottle filling stations at the and turning off the water fountain feature itself.

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
On 4/24/2020 at 10:54 AM, MHDNURSE said:

This NPR article is interesting:

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/842528906/what-it-might-look-like-to-safely-reopen-schools

I am wondering about setting up mobile hand washing stations (like they have at outdoor festivals for example) at the entrances to every school.

I think about my school district which is a large, urban district and there just is no way to decrease class sizes- there just are not enough classrooms. I guess if they get rid of all common areas and put up walls to make classrooms maybe, but even then I just do not think we can do it.

Maybe they should do distance learning with the older kids, and use the high schools/middle schools to spread out the younger kids for face-to-face learning.

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Specializes in School Nurse, past Med Surge.

I think it’s going to be mass chaos. A total sh!t show. ??

But for real...I’m stressed!

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