Digital student immunization management tools improve efficiency and reduce job stress for school nurses.
As part of caring for students’ health, school nurses are on the frontline when it comes to managing school immunization records. They must collect immunization records from parents and guardians, maintain records for schools, and report school immunization rates to state health departments.
Unfortunately, school nurses face significant challenges in this area. Primary.Health school immunization management tools help them overcome these roadblocks while keeping students and schools free from vaccine-preventable disease:
Lack of resources
Many school nurses face a lack of resources or support from their administration. According to Nurse Journal, more than a third of public schools in the United States share part-time nurses with multiple school districts. Additionally, 25 percent don’t have a nurse at all.
Without adequate support for tracking and recording student immunizations, school nurses must take on additional responsibilities, which can lead to long hours and increased stress levels.
How we help: Our school immunization management software syncs with schools’ student information systems (SIS) and existing state immunization records to quickly flag missing student and school-wide immunization records for easy follow-up. This improvement frees school nurses for the jobs they do best.
Tracking down immunization records
Often the biggest hurdle is tracking down the immunization records themselves. This may be due to language barriers or other challenges in communicating with parents and guardians.
How we help: We make parent communications more efficient. From our immunization dashboard, school nurses can request missing student records from parents in a single click. Also, school nurses can use our multilingual messaging templates to quickly text or email reminders in guardians’ preferred language. And we provide a parent portal for fast, anytime upload of student records for school review.
Timing of immunizations
Certain immunizations may only be offered at specific times during the year. School nurses must stay organized to keep track of required vaccinations and make sure all students are up-to-date on shots so they can continue attending school without interruption.
How we help: Our school immunization software proactively alerts schools to student and school-wide immunization gaps. In cases of large vaccination gaps, school nurses can easily schedule a pop-up vaccination clinic through Primary.Health to bring all students up to date.
Navigating privacy laws and regulations
Finally, another frequent barrier is navigating data privacy laws and regulations around student information. School nurses must understand their local laws to ensure they comply with any requirements for handling student information.
How we help: Our HITRUST-certified, HIPAA-compliant platform protects confidential school/student/district health data according to the highest healthcare privacy and security regulations and standards.
Overall, while being a school nurse is rewarding work that helps keep children safe, it also comes with its own unique set of challenges involving immunization records. Primary.Health’s digital school health management platform simplifies this responsibility for school nurses, freeing them for the important work of providing hands-on care to students.
