The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #46619

Julia Graham Lear, PhD, Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, The George Washington University, 1350 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 505, Washington, DC 20036, 202-466-3396, jgl@gwu.edu

Five days a week, nine months a year, nearly 50 million children between the ages of five and eighteen attend schools for 6 1/2 to 7 hours daily. Of these children, "an estimated 10-15% have a chronic physical health condition, and 1% have a severe chronic condition" .Treatment regimens for children with chronic conditions frequently require the collaboration of personnel located in schools. Although there has been an increase in the number of children needing medication administered during school hours, there has been no examination of the safety and quality issues associated with the increase in medications required by children. Recent articles and studies have, 1) estimated that more than one million children were taking medication in schools .2) found that the use of psychotropic medication has grown dramatically, with more than $1 billion spent on psychotrophic medicine in 1998 to treat, on average, 4% of all youths, predominately those ages 6-17 , and 3) reported that 314 (48.5%) of the respondents to a NASN study, "report that a medication error occurred in the past year in their school(s)", with the most frequent error being missed doses (79.7%) During this session, panelists will describe the issues of patient safety within the context of overlapping policies, regulations, and rules, describe best practices, recommend policy and research activities for the development of patient safety practice for medication management and discuss professional issues such as delegation of medication administration responsibilities to unlicensed personnel, liability issues, and professional development needs.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify unique patient safety issues of medication managment in schools;
• describe best practices currently in place to address medication administration in schools; and
• describe clinical professional issues and solutions associated with medication administration in schools.

Keywords: Quality Improvement, Pharmacies

Related Web page: www.healthinschools.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.