Hopefully Helpful School Nurse Tip: Many school nurse enjoy creating "Meet the School Nurse" letters for the beginning of the year. Guess what? I'm not one of them, but I wrote this blog post for those of you who are :)
Why create a Meet The School Nurse Letter
There are quite a few reasons that creating a Meet The School Nurse letter is an excellent idea. I just don't do it because I use this instead!
However, many school nurses prefer a simplified one page meet the school nurse letter and hear are a few excellent reasons why!
First, an "about me" welcome to school letter can help establish a positive relationship between the school nurse and the students and their families. By sharing some personal information, such as hobbies, interests, and background, you can create a more approachable and friendly persona, which can help put students and families at ease.
Second, this type of letter can help communicate the school nurse's nursing background and student health goals for the school year. This is a great time to outline some of the key objectives of the nurse's office, office expectation, medication guidelines, and can help students and families understand what the school health requirements are, what can be expected during a nurse office visit, and when / how to expect to receive future communication from you.
Finally, an "about me" letter can help build a sense of community. By sharing some information, the school nurse can encourage students and families to share their health concern & questions, which can help foster a sense of belonging and connection.
Are you interested in a Meet The School Nurse letter?
If you're creative and have some free time then you can create your own templates. If you're trying to save time or lost all your creativity because you're to focused on collecting school physicals (!) then I've listed some editable options for you below!
Hopefully Helpful School Nurse Tip: Are you interested in learning more about IHPs; what they are, how to write them, and how to save time writing them? If so, then this DOASN blog post is for you- keep reading...
IHP Overview
Real quick, the terms "health care" and "healthcare" are often used interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference in meaning between the two terms. The word phrase "health care" typically refers to the process of supplying medical services to treat illness or injury; whereas "healthcare" is a broader term that includes not only medical care, but also the promotion of general health and well-being through preventative measures. It makes sense then that school nurses are responsible for developing Individualized Healthcare Plans (IHP) for many of their students.
So, Individualized Healthcare Plans in the school setting not only discuss medical care, but also interventions to promote the overall health of a specific student. Based on the nursing process and initiated by a school nurse, IHPs are written by a school nurse for nursing staff. The information included in the IHP is used to create other school health related plans that may be needed for health, safety, and academic success for the specific student.
IHPs must included information that is compliant with the state nurse practice act and standards of school nursing for the state specific in which it is written. According to the National Association of School Nurses, an IHP:
"It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that the registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as school nurse) initiates and develops an Individualized Healthcare Plan (IHP) for students whose healthcare needs require more complex school nursing services. An IHP is a plan of care written by the registered nurse for students with or at risk for physical or mental health needs (ANA & NASN, 2017). It is the responsibility of the school nurse to annually evaluate the IHP, as well as to update the plan if deemed appropriate, to reflect changes in the student’s healthcare needs and address nursing interventions and/or student healthcare outcomes."
Use IHP templates to help yourself save some much needed time! Speaking of time- one of my goals is to create general IHPs for common health conditions school nurses need to write IHPs for; however, I just haven't found the time yet.
I do have an editable Google IHP template that you might find helpful. It is 100% editable and contains all of the recommended IHP components. You can purchase your own copy for here-
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