School nurse case management: achieving health and educational outcomes

Educators and health care professionals alike understand that healthy students are likely to be successful learners. The goal of school nurse case management is to support students so that they are ready to learn. This article describes the outcomes of a 4-year process improvement project designed to show the impact of school nurse case management on attendance, behavior, academic performance, quality of life, and health compliance in a large southeastern urban school district. Recognizing a need for standardized practice, the School Health Leadership Team created a case management policy, procedures, forms, a data collection process, and ongoing education and mentoring. The policy enabled school nurses to select students with health and learning needs, target specific outcomes, implement interventions, and document the gains made. In the 4 years of this project, 84% of the students case managed improved in 1 or more of the 5 target areas.