Quality Assurance in School Health Programs

Role of School Nurse
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Role of School Nurse
School nurses play an important role in the provision of health care services to school children. Due to the dynamic lifestyle changes in the modern world, young children are entering schools with chronic conditions that require high quality care. This paper describes some of the roles that school nurses play in providing health care services to students within the school environment. The school has been considered to be the most influential environment in children after their homes. As schools continue to receive more students with chronic health conditions, school nurses are faced with a lot of challenges in managing them while they are in school. At school, the nurse is the health care representative; therefore, having a comprehensive understanding of the role played by the nurse is important in ensuring that there is a coordinated keep among the involved stakeholders.
Role of School Nurse
* Providing direct care to students (National Association of School Nurses, 2017). School nurses have been given the responsibility of providing care to students who have been injured and who are suffering from acute illness and provide long-term management to those who have special needs.
* Providing leadership in providing health care services at schools. Being the health care representative within the school, the nurse is responsible for assessing the overall health system and developing plans that will ensure the overall needs of the school health needs are met (National Association of School Nurses, 2017).
* Providing screening and referral services various health problems. This decreases the negative effects health conditions might have on school children by identifying those students who require special care early and referring them to appropriate treatment therapies.
* Promoting health. Consequently, school nurses have been given the responsibility providing health education to students either individual or group through health classes.
* Promoting a healthy school environment. School nurses are responsible for ensuring that the physical and emotional needs of the school community are met. This is done through monitoring immunizations, planning and ensuring that there are appropriate exclusions are achieved in cases of infectious and communicable diseases and they are reported as required by the law (Magalnick & Mazyck, 2008).
* Collaborating with family, school personnel, and community and health professionals for self-management, self-advocacy and learning.
Support for School Nurses
For school nurses to be able to ensure that health and educational needs of students are met within the school environment, they require adequate support from all the involved stakeholders. The following include the appropriate support and infrastructure that they need though it is not limited to:
* Adequate funding from the state. This is to ensure that all the needs of the various health programs within the school are met. The funding is to provide all the necessary equipment for screening and immunization of health conditions withi...