February 12, 2025 • 14 mins
All across the nation, schools are struggling with what is called chronic absenteeism. Last year, 32 percent of Canyon School District students were chronically absent — meaning they missed more than 10 percent of the school year. The problem became prevalent following the pandemic, and Canyons is working to help keep our students learning, interacting with peers, and taking full advantage of everything the classroom has to offer.
In the latest episode of Connect Canyons, we learn about one of the many ways Canyons works to help students, their families, and Canyons employees alike determine whether a cough is due to dry air or something more serious. Canyons Nursing Specialist Jen Gerrard, shares details about how Canyons is one of the first in the state to pilot a new Telehealth program.
“Adding the Telehealth just gives us greater access,” says Gerrard. “It removes so many barriers. It removes the barrier of time, so students aren't missing time from school, parents aren't missing time from work. It removes transportation barriers. Somebody who doesn't have a car has a real difficult time picking up their student and then also getting them to a doctor. That can be a real challenge for some families.”
Episode Chapters
00:57 Telehealth Program Overview
Our expert tells us how Canyons came to be one of the first in the state to pilot the telehealth program at 17 schools with the help of Intermountain Health.
02:20 How Telehealth Works
We learn how the telehealth program works from the moment a student feels unwell to speaking with a nurse, and how parents are looped in.
06:42 Impact and Expansion of Telehealth
How the telehealth program has already helped Canyons students and employees and what the future could look like.
11:19 Additional Health Programs
Gerrard explains other measures in place to help students and employees with a variety of health concerns.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by
Canyons School District.
This is a show about what weteach, how we teach and why we
get up close and personal withsome of the people who make our
schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more.
We meet national experts too.
Learning is about makingconnections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All across the nation , schools are struggling with
what is being called chronicabsenteeism.
In the 2023-24 school year, 32%of Canyon School District
students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than
10% of the school year.
The problem became prevalentfollowing the pandemic, and
Canyons is working to help keepour students learning and in the
classroom.
(00:53):
Welcome to Connect Canyons.
I'm your host, frances.
Cook Canyon School District ispilot testing a school-based
telehealth program at 17 of ourschools with the help of
Intermountain Health.
Joining me today to tell usabout this new program is
Canyon's nursing specialist, jenGerard.
Thanks for joining us, jen Hi,thanks for having me Now.
(01:14):
The telehealth program is forboth students and employees
alike.
Tell me, how did this all comeabout?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I listened to a presentation from the lead nurse
in Wasatch School District, andshe talked all about their tele
.
I reached out to IntermountainHealth and we scheduled a
(01:46):
meeting with the admin andIntermountain Health the people
that run the telehealth programand so they provided us with
information and everybody wasvery excited about the
opportunity, and so we decidedto pilot it in a handful of our
schools via our school nurses.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's really great, so we're one of the first in the
state to have this program.
It sounds like.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah.
So Intermountain they startedreaching out to lead nurses
pretty heavily after a couple ofother people demonstrated some
interest, and so there's ahandful of districts that are
piloting it this year at thesame time that we are.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Awesome.
So the reason students missschool can be widely varying.
You know, headaches, theirstomach hurts, you name it.
What are some of the healthconcerns that the telehealth
program can help students andemployees with?
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So there's so many different reasons that students
will come down to the healthroom.
Like you said headaches,stomach aches sometimes it's
somatization of other anxietiesor stressors that are going on
in their lives.
The Intermountain HealthSchool-Based Telehealth Program
is really designed to kind ofreplace what we would typically
go to urgent care for.
So if somebody comes down andthey have a sore throat and a
fever, we have point-of-caretesting on site with each of our
(02:57):
telehealth equipment kits andthat's part of the assessment
that the nurse will start with.
They might do a strep test.
If the student is complainingthat their ears are hurting,
then the nurse will have a lookat the ears and assess what's
going on, see if they have atemperature.
If they have indications thatthere could be an infection
going on in that ear, then theycan connect with telehealth
(03:18):
after receiving parent consentand basically get them treated
almost on the spot.
For the ear infection example,they would look at the ear,
determine that telehealth wouldbe warranted, reach out to the
parent for consent.
Parent can then join the call,which has been really great.
They can still be there, liveseeing the whole visit go down
and at that point the providercan look at the ears right there
(03:39):
on the spot too.
Using the equipment that wehave in our kits, they can
visualize that whole eardrum andmake a determination and a
diagnosis From there.
If antibiotics are prescribed,or if there's any prescriptions,
then they would send those tothe pharmacy of choice that the
parent puts in their consentform.
Parent can pick up the studentat the end of the school day
because if they're well enoughto stay at school for the rest
(03:59):
of the day they can still stay.
We might give them a little bitof over-the-counter medication
to help them feel better.
If the parent would like us todo that, parent can pick the
student up, pick the antibioticup head home, give them their
first dose.
They're back at school the nextday.
So zero downtime Strepinfections I know I mentioned
that already, but that's alittle bit different just
because there is a period ofcontagion and so we would still.
We can pick up the antibiotics,start the antibiotics and once
(04:29):
they've been on antibiotics for12 hours they can return to
school.
So typically they're back thenext day.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know, growing up in a time where you would just
have to call or show up at thedoctor's office and just wait in
the waiting room for hours onend, and then you have not only
the student missing school, butparents are having to miss work.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
It's just so incredible to me to think that
it's just a virtual and theemployees that use it have also
really loved it because it'sbeen just that convenient.
They're not waiting in a healthroom, they're in a doctor's
office waiting room, they'restaying in the health room with
the nurse.
We have a designated providerfor telehealth, for school-based
telehealth, and so we wait like7 to 15 minutes max.
(05:10):
If the wait's going to belonger than that, they'll call
us and have us schedule a timeso that we can kind of better
anticipate and then that way itmight make sense to have the
student return to class or havethem wait with us, depending on
how they're feeling.
But so far we haven't waitedmore than 15 minutes for any of
our appointments, so we just, bythe time we get the intake on,
we've got somebody there torespond pretty quickly, so it's
(05:31):
been really convenient, Iimagine it goes even beyond the
convenience of it.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's always nice for us to be able to, you know,
turn things around that quickly.
But then, as you've said in thepast, students can't learn if
they don't feel well, if they'renot healthy.
And even for the teachers,they'd much rather have a couple
minutes, half hour downtimeversus days on end.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, definitely.
Beyond convenience, I mean, itjust improves access.
It makes it just so easy forparents to get in for an
appointment without having tofigure out where their insurance
is accepted.
We already have a list of allthat information so we can
determine pretty quickly iftheir insurance is accepted in
Connect Care and it just it'sthat quick appointment that
(06:13):
minimizes downtime for thestudent, minimizes their
disruption to instruction in theclassroom and it minimizes the
parent's downtime at work.
Our telehealth provider isamazing and she will allow us to
get on the call first and thenwe'll send the invite to the
parent so the parent can joinright there in that moment when
the provider is already on thecall, which is so kind and it's
just it's really minimizingdowntime for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Not having to wait with the hold music playing the
Muzak.
We've had this program in placesince September of last year at
17 of our schools.
We're not out at all of themyet, but have you already seen
an impact from it?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
We have From September to December.
Over those first few months inthe fall we had 39 total visits.
Out of those 39 visits, 27 ofthose missed zero days of school
, so they didn't need to go homeand they were able to return to
school the next day.
The handful of people that havemissed time off have been
either they've had a strepinfection and they're contagious
(07:14):
, so they need to miss a littlebit of time.
But we've had six that havemissed less than half a day,
three that have missed one dayand only three that have missed
more than one day.
So historically, as a schoolnurse working in a higher needs
community, I mean I've hadstudents where I've looked at
the ears, when they'vecomplained of ear pain and I'm
like I really think you need tosee a provider.
(07:34):
This may be infected and thosestudents don't return for three
or four days, which is a crazyamount of time and it's
completely unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So it seems to be working, you know, just in
roughly half of our schools.
Is there a plan to potentiallyput it out at all schools?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I would love that.
I haven't talked withleadership yet about expanding
the program because we've beenfocused on just collecting some
data to see how beneficial theneed is.
I think that we still certainlyaren't reaching everyone.
We still have a lot of peoplethat forget that we have it.
Most of the visits that we seeare the ones that have a nurse
(08:13):
there full time and then we havea handful of nurses that cover
more than one school that we'rejust testing to see how feasible
it is.
That gets a little bit trickierbecause if the nurse isn't in
that building then it's justkind of an oversight and they
may call the parent and theparent will pick them up.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now for the schools that do have the program in
place.
Do families need to sign up forit, or is it just as simple as
a kiddo's not feeling so welland they walk into the front
office and say, hey, I don'tfeel well.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, so both.
We have our registration andconsent available on our CSD
website.
It's on the nursing servicepage.
There's telehealth consents ina handful of different languages
available.
Parents can go on there anytimeand complete one and that's
basically opting in for theprogram If we were to.
Even if they don't have a needat that moment, they can do the
(09:02):
consent and it's good for 12months with Intermountain
essentially.
So each time we would do avisit within that 12 month
period that we have consent for,we would still call and get a
verbal consent from the parenttoo.
We have a number of parentsthat went ahead and completed it
straight away as soon as wepushed out our parent square,
but then a lot of times it's theneed arises.
We reach out to the family, wedirect them to that consent form
(09:22):
and they complete it at thattime and then we get them on
with a provider.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I'd like to go back when, at the very beginning, you
were talking about how you hadheard about it in another
district.
What is it about absenteeism,about telehealth, that just made
you say we need to be doingthis?
Why is this important for ourstudents and for our employees?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Well, for me I mean nurses.
We're here as medicalprofessionals and so we help
students manage all sorts ofdifferent conditions, chronic
and acute.
But our goal is really the sameas all the other educators we
want students to be in school,in their classrooms, learning
with their peers, and so themore that we can keep kids at
school when they're healthyenough to do so, the better off
(10:07):
they're going to be, and theyneed to be healthy to learn.
So adding the telehealth justgives us greater access and it
removes so many barriers.
It removes the barrier of time,so students aren't missing time
from school, Parents aren'tmissing time from work.
It removes transportationbarriers.
Somebody who doesn't have a carhas a real difficult time
picking up their student andthen also getting them to a
(10:27):
doctor.
That can be a real challengefor some families.
We have the financial barriersthat get in the way too.
A ConnectCare visit, if youpaid out of pocket, is $69.
They accept most insurance.
Their list is pretty broad.
Even insurance networks thatwouldn't traditionally be
accepted by Intermountain Healthor be on an Intermountain plan
are accepted by ConnectCare.
(10:47):
It's a pretty big list.
And then, if you are worried orconcerned that you're not going
to have the.
If you don't have insurance andyou don't have the ability to
pay the $69 fee, then we do havefinancial assistance that's
available upon qualifying forthat.
We have lots of options, butthat's still one more barrier.
It's just the ability to payfor a visit is another challenge
(11:08):
that gets in the way for somefamilies.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's really good to know that
it's not just if you're coveredunder Intermountain.
They're also taking a number ofother insurance programs.
This is one of many programsthat we have in place when it
comes to caring for our studentsand employees, when it comes to
their health.
What are some of the otherthings that we have in place to
(11:31):
help them out during the day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, so in regard to telehealth, so I'll just start
there because we're alreadytalking about it.
But with the implementation ofthe telehealth pilot, we also
really vamped up our standingorders, and standing orders are
for different medications, pointof care, testing, and so it's
given our nurses a lot moreresources to help students stay
at school and be able to keeplearning and feel better.
(11:54):
When they're having somethingminor, such as a bug bite, that
they just can't leave alone,it's so itchy.
We've got hydrocortisone creamnow that the nurse can apply to
that to help them feel betterright there in the moment and
they can return to class andfocus.
We have ibuprofen, tylenol,things like that, if it's after
an assessment with the nurse, ifthat's needed.
But additionally, like point ofcare testing has been a huge
(12:14):
game changer too, because youknow we've ran a handful of
strep tests that have come backnegative and that helps us rule
something out, so then we can goback to.
Well, your sore throat could berelated to congestion or a cold
or something else that you'vegot going on, but it helps us
determine whether or not astudent really needs to go home
or not.
Additionally, our nursing teamhas we started doing vaccines a
(12:40):
couple of years ago we partneredwith Utah Department of Health
the Vaccine for Children programand we were able to vaccinate
many students and so we'rehelping maintain compliance
there, which is also keepingkids in school, because per
legislation, if they're not incompliance with their vaccines
by a certain number of daysafter enrolling, then they
really should be excluded fromschool until they get their
vaccines in compliance.
We offer vaccine clinics ahandful of times throughout the
(13:03):
year, almost monthly.
Lately we have another onecoming up in March, on March
12th, from 3 to 6 pm, and that'sgoing to be another opportunity
to just help those kids getwhat they need and keep them
protected and keep them inschool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
That's great.
If parents or, you know, evenour employees have questions or
want to see what all we have isthere, where can they go to find
more information on what thesystems we have in place?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
They can reach out to the school nurse that's
assigned to their building.
They're always a great resource.
They can answer lots ofquestions.
They're always welcome to reachout to me.
They can call me, they canemail me.
I'm happy to answer questions.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's really great to hear all of the steps that we
have in place to not only keepour students healthy and things,
but, like we talked about, makeit convenient for the student
and the parent and keep ourkiddos in class.
You know, like we said, theycan't learn if they're not
healthy and happy, and thank youfor all the work that you do to
make sure that they are.
Thank you, and thank you forlistening.
(14:03):
If there's a topic you'd liketo hear discussed on the podcast
, send us an email tocommunications at
canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect
Canyons.
Connect with us on Twitter,facebook or Instagram at Canyons
District or on our website,canyonsdistrictorg.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by
Canyons School District.
This is a show about what weteach, how we teach and why we
get up close and personal withsome of the people who make our
schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more.
We meet national experts too.
Learning is about makingconnections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All across the nation , schools are struggling with
what is being called chronicabsenteeism.
In the 2023-24 school year, 32%of Canyon School District
students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than
10% of the school year.
The problem became prevalentfollowing the pandemic, and
Canyons is working to help keepour students learning and in the
classroom.
(00:53):
Welcome to Connect Canyons.
I'm your host, frances.
Cook Canyon School District ispilot testing a school-based
telehealth program at 17 of ourschools with the help of
Intermountain Health.
Joining me today to tell usabout this new program is
Canyon's nursing specialist, jenGerard.
Thanks for joining us, jen Hi,thanks for having me Now.
(01:14):
The telehealth program is forboth students and employees
alike.
Tell me, how did this all comeabout?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I listened to a presentation from the lead nurse
in Wasatch School District, andshe talked all about their tele
.
I reached out to IntermountainHealth and we scheduled a
(01:46):
meeting with the admin andIntermountain Health the people
that run the telehealth programand so they provided us with
information and everybody wasvery excited about the
opportunity, and so we decidedto pilot it in a handful of our
schools via our school nurses.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's really great, so we're one of the first in the
state to have this program.
It sounds like.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah.
So Intermountain they startedreaching out to lead nurses
pretty heavily after a couple ofother people demonstrated some
interest, and so there's ahandful of districts that are
piloting it this year at thesame time that we are.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Awesome.
So the reason students missschool can be widely varying.
You know, headaches, theirstomach hurts, you name it.
What are some of the healthconcerns that the telehealth
program can help students andemployees with?
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So there's so many different reasons that students
will come down to the healthroom.
Like you said headaches,stomach aches sometimes it's
somatization of other anxietiesor stressors that are going on
in their lives.
The Intermountain HealthSchool-Based Telehealth Program
is really designed to kind ofreplace what we would typically
go to urgent care for.
So if somebody comes down andthey have a sore throat and a
fever, we have point-of-caretesting on site with each of our
(02:57):
telehealth equipment kits andthat's part of the assessment
that the nurse will start with.
They might do a strep test.
If the student is complainingthat their ears are hurting,
then the nurse will have a lookat the ears and assess what's
going on, see if they have atemperature.
If they have indications thatthere could be an infection
going on in that ear, then theycan connect with telehealth
(03:18):
after receiving parent consentand basically get them treated
almost on the spot.
For the ear infection example,they would look at the ear,
determine that telehealth wouldbe warranted, reach out to the
parent for consent.
Parent can then join the call,which has been really great.
They can still be there, liveseeing the whole visit go down
and at that point the providercan look at the ears right there
(03:39):
on the spot too.
Using the equipment that wehave in our kits, they can
visualize that whole eardrum andmake a determination and a
diagnosis From there.
If antibiotics are prescribed,or if there's any prescriptions,
then they would send those tothe pharmacy of choice that the
parent puts in their consentform.
Parent can pick up the studentat the end of the school day
because if they're well enoughto stay at school for the rest
(03:59):
of the day they can still stay.
We might give them a little bitof over-the-counter medication
to help them feel better.
If the parent would like us todo that, parent can pick the
student up, pick the antibioticup head home, give them their
first dose.
They're back at school the nextday.
So zero downtime Strepinfections I know I mentioned
that already, but that's alittle bit different just
because there is a period ofcontagion and so we would still.
We can pick up the antibiotics,start the antibiotics and once
(04:29):
they've been on antibiotics for12 hours they can return to
school.
So typically they're back thenext day.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know, growing up in a time where you would just
have to call or show up at thedoctor's office and just wait in
the waiting room for hours onend, and then you have not only
the student missing school, butparents are having to miss work.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
It's just so incredible to me to think that
it's just a virtual and theemployees that use it have also
really loved it because it'sbeen just that convenient.
They're not waiting in a healthroom, they're in a doctor's
office waiting room, they'restaying in the health room with
the nurse.
We have a designated providerfor telehealth, for school-based
telehealth, and so we wait like7 to 15 minutes max.
(05:10):
If the wait's going to belonger than that, they'll call
us and have us schedule a timeso that we can kind of better
anticipate and then that way itmight make sense to have the
student return to class or havethem wait with us, depending on
how they're feeling.
But so far we haven't waitedmore than 15 minutes for any of
our appointments, so we just, bythe time we get the intake on,
we've got somebody there torespond pretty quickly, so it's
(05:31):
been really convenient, Iimagine it goes even beyond the
convenience of it.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's always nice for us to be able to, you know,
turn things around that quickly.
But then, as you've said in thepast, students can't learn if
they don't feel well, if they'renot healthy.
And even for the teachers,they'd much rather have a couple
minutes, half hour downtimeversus days on end.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, definitely.
Beyond convenience, I mean, itjust improves access.
It makes it just so easy forparents to get in for an
appointment without having tofigure out where their insurance
is accepted.
We already have a list of allthat information so we can
determine pretty quickly iftheir insurance is accepted in
Connect Care and it just it'sthat quick appointment that
(06:13):
minimizes downtime for thestudent, minimizes their
disruption to instruction in theclassroom and it minimizes the
parent's downtime at work.
Our telehealth provider isamazing and she will allow us to
get on the call first and thenwe'll send the invite to the
parent so the parent can joinright there in that moment when
the provider is already on thecall, which is so kind and it's
just it's really minimizingdowntime for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Not having to wait with the hold music playing the
Muzak.
We've had this program in placesince September of last year at
17 of our schools.
We're not out at all of themyet, but have you already seen
an impact from it?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
We have From September to December.
Over those first few months inthe fall we had 39 total visits.
Out of those 39 visits, 27 ofthose missed zero days of school
, so they didn't need to go homeand they were able to return to
school the next day.
The handful of people that havemissed time off have been
either they've had a strepinfection and they're contagious
(07:14):
, so they need to miss a littlebit of time.
But we've had six that havemissed less than half a day,
three that have missed one dayand only three that have missed
more than one day.
So historically, as a schoolnurse working in a higher needs
community, I mean I've hadstudents where I've looked at
the ears, when they'vecomplained of ear pain and I'm
like I really think you need tosee a provider.
(07:34):
This may be infected and thosestudents don't return for three
or four days, which is a crazyamount of time and it's
completely unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So it seems to be working, you know, just in
roughly half of our schools.
Is there a plan to potentiallyput it out at all schools?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I would love that.
I haven't talked withleadership yet about expanding
the program because we've beenfocused on just collecting some
data to see how beneficial theneed is.
I think that we still certainlyaren't reaching everyone.
We still have a lot of peoplethat forget that we have it.
Most of the visits that we seeare the ones that have a nurse
(08:13):
there full time and then we havea handful of nurses that cover
more than one school that we'rejust testing to see how feasible
it is.
That gets a little bit trickierbecause if the nurse isn't in
that building then it's justkind of an oversight and they
may call the parent and theparent will pick them up.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now for the schools that do have the program in
place.
Do families need to sign up forit, or is it just as simple as
a kiddo's not feeling so welland they walk into the front
office and say, hey, I don'tfeel well.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, so both.
We have our registration andconsent available on our CSD
website.
It's on the nursing servicepage.
There's telehealth consents ina handful of different languages
available.
Parents can go on there anytimeand complete one and that's
basically opting in for theprogram If we were to.
Even if they don't have a needat that moment, they can do the
(09:02):
consent and it's good for 12months with Intermountain
essentially.
So each time we would do avisit within that 12 month
period that we have consent for,we would still call and get a
verbal consent from the parenttoo.
We have a number of parentsthat went ahead and completed it
straight away as soon as wepushed out our parent square,
but then a lot of times it's theneed arises.
We reach out to the family, wedirect them to that consent form
(09:22):
and they complete it at thattime and then we get them on
with a provider.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I'd like to go back when, at the very beginning, you
were talking about how you hadheard about it in another
district.
What is it about absenteeism,about telehealth, that just made
you say we need to be doingthis?
Why is this important for ourstudents and for our employees?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Well, for me I mean nurses.
We're here as medicalprofessionals and so we help
students manage all sorts ofdifferent conditions, chronic
and acute.
But our goal is really the sameas all the other educators we
want students to be in school,in their classrooms, learning
with their peers, and so themore that we can keep kids at
school when they're healthyenough to do so, the better off
(10:07):
they're going to be, and theyneed to be healthy to learn.
So adding the telehealth justgives us greater access and it
removes so many barriers.
It removes the barrier of time,so students aren't missing time
from school, Parents aren'tmissing time from work.
It removes transportationbarriers.
Somebody who doesn't have a carhas a real difficult time
picking up their student andthen also getting them to a
(10:27):
doctor.
That can be a real challengefor some families.
We have the financial barriersthat get in the way too.
A ConnectCare visit, if youpaid out of pocket, is $69.
They accept most insurance.
Their list is pretty broad.
Even insurance networks thatwouldn't traditionally be
accepted by Intermountain Healthor be on an Intermountain plan
are accepted by ConnectCare.
(10:47):
It's a pretty big list.
And then, if you are worried orconcerned that you're not going
to have the.
If you don't have insurance andyou don't have the ability to
pay the $69 fee, then we do havefinancial assistance that's
available upon qualifying forthat.
We have lots of options, butthat's still one more barrier.
It's just the ability to payfor a visit is another challenge
(11:08):
that gets in the way for somefamilies.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's really good to know that
it's not just if you're coveredunder Intermountain.
They're also taking a number ofother insurance programs.
This is one of many programsthat we have in place when it
comes to caring for our studentsand employees, when it comes to
their health.
What are some of the otherthings that we have in place to
(11:31):
help them out during the day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, so in regard to telehealth, so I'll just start
there because we're alreadytalking about it.
But with the implementation ofthe telehealth pilot, we also
really vamped up our standingorders, and standing orders are
for different medications, pointof care, testing, and so it's
given our nurses a lot moreresources to help students stay
at school and be able to keeplearning and feel better.
(11:54):
When they're having somethingminor, such as a bug bite, that
they just can't leave alone,it's so itchy.
We've got hydrocortisone creamnow that the nurse can apply to
that to help them feel betterright there in the moment and
they can return to class andfocus.
We have ibuprofen, tylenol,things like that, if it's after
an assessment with the nurse, ifthat's needed.
But additionally, like point ofcare testing has been a huge
(12:14):
game changer too, because youknow we've ran a handful of
strep tests that have come backnegative and that helps us rule
something out, so then we can goback to.
Well, your sore throat could berelated to congestion or a cold
or something else that you'vegot going on, but it helps us
determine whether or not astudent really needs to go home
or not.
Additionally, our nursing teamhas we started doing vaccines a
(12:40):
couple of years ago we partneredwith Utah Department of Health
the Vaccine for Children programand we were able to vaccinate
many students and so we'rehelping maintain compliance
there, which is also keepingkids in school, because per
legislation, if they're not incompliance with their vaccines
by a certain number of daysafter enrolling, then they
really should be excluded fromschool until they get their
vaccines in compliance.
We offer vaccine clinics ahandful of times throughout the
(13:03):
year, almost monthly.
Lately we have another onecoming up in March, on March
12th, from 3 to 6 pm, and that'sgoing to be another opportunity
to just help those kids getwhat they need and keep them
protected and keep them inschool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
That's great.
If parents or, you know, evenour employees have questions or
want to see what all we have isthere, where can they go to find
more information on what thesystems we have in place?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
They can reach out to the school nurse that's
assigned to their building.
They're always a great resource.
They can answer lots ofquestions.
They're always welcome to reachout to me.
They can call me, they canemail me.
I'm happy to answer questions.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's really great to hear all of the steps that we
have in place to not only keepour students healthy and things,
but, like we talked about, makeit convenient for the student
and the parent and keep ourkiddos in class.
You know, like we said, theycan't learn if they're not
healthy and happy, and thank youfor all the work that you do to
make sure that they are.
Thank you, and thank you forlistening.
(14:03):
If there's a topic you'd liketo hear discussed on the podcast
, send us an email tocommunications at
canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect
Canyons.
Connect with us on Twitter,facebook or Instagram at Canyons
District or on our website,canyonsdistrictorg.
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