Summary: Provides high quality medical care, health education, and preventive services to students while ensuring compliance with state regulations (including Medicaid and Child Care Licensing) and school policies. Collaborates with educators, therapists, and parents to create a health school environment that minimizes student absences due to illness and supports overall well-being. This position adheres to the Arkansas School Nurse Roles and Responsibilities Practice Guidelines to ensure the highest standards of school health services.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities: include the following: other duties may be assigned.
Assess, plan, and implement nursing care for students, including those with chronic conditions or complex medical needs.
Monitor and manage student health concerns, including acute illnesses, injuries, and communicable diseases.
Contacts parents and other medical providers regarding the medical care and/or condition of child as necessary.
Develop and maintain individualized health/nursing care plans for students with medical conditions including but not limited allergies, seizures, asthma, feeding tube, trach, colostomy, etc. Plans should be reviewed and updated at least annually.
Participate in multidisciplinary team meetings and contribute to development of education plans as needed.
Administers medications and treatments as prescribed and in accordance with school policy and state regulations.
Maintains accurate health records and documents assessment and response of student to nursing tasks and interventions, including medication administration in accordance with state regulations and school policies and procedures.
Ensures compliance of students with immunization requirements and alerts director if immunizations are delinquent.
Ensure that medical action plans for allergies, asthma, seizures, and other conditions are current, communicated to appropriate staff, and in designated location in each classroom.
Communicates medical care expectations and/or changes for a student to all necessary staff to ensure compliance and consistency.
Ensure rescue medications are available and current.
Counts and records daily the number and type of controlled drugs present. Ensure medications are in original prescription containers that include dosage instructions and pharmacy and prescribing physician information. Ensure expired medications are returned to the parent or disposed of following ESA policy or procedure. Ensure as students are discharged that medications are returned to the parent or disposed of following ESA policy or procedure.
Train and document training of designated school personnel on:
- Medication administration including rescue medications
- Signs and symptoms of distress
- Seizure management
- Use of thickening agents
- Allergy response
- Communicable disease prevention
- Emergency response
- Delegable tasks including but not limited to tube feeding, colostomy management, ileostomy management, trach management
Delegates tasks within scope of nursing license with regular and documented monitoring to ensure strict adherence to policies and procedures.
Requests authorization for nursing services from payer sources as needed for summer EIDT program and ensures no lapse in approval time frame. Completes documentation and billing of nursing services in accordance with Arkansas Medicaid Early Intervention Day Treatment regulations.
Ensures emergency medical equipment (suction, pulse ox, vital signs monitor, thermometer, AED where applicable, etc.) is available and in good working order daily.
Reviews school health policies and procedures and makes recommendations for revision or for new procedures where clear documentation does not exist or a new process is implemented.
Monitor and maintain sanitary conditions within the school environment.
Ensure compliance with state and federal regulations, including Medicaid billing regulations where applicable.
Ensure compliance with incident reporting policies and procedures.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
None.
Compliance/HIPAA:
While performing the duties of this job, employee will comply with all federal, state and local laws and regulations pertaining to Easterseals Arkansas.
Employee has access to all children’s protected health information within his/her program. Employee will not attempt to access any other protected health information unless otherwise approved by Supervisor or Privacy Officer.
