Clinical Considerations in School-based Health

Children and adolescents spend a significant portion of their lives in school, and thus, both acute and chronic medical conditions, emergencies and disasters, and mental and behavioral health disease are often encountered by school-based health providers, such as physicians, advance practice providers, and school nurses. Advancements in the field of school-based health have improved the overall health and mental well-being of students. The implementation of school-based health clinics allow students access to health care while in schools, decreasing the burden placed on emergency departments, urgent care centers, and primary care physician offices. With these advancements, the need for school-based health providers to be aware of the latest clinical evidence and technologies in order to provide optimal care for their students is of paramount importance. The purpose of this book is to provide school-based health providers, including physicians, advance practice providers, and school nurses, a comprehensive, “go-to” resource to access evidence-based recommendations for the assessment/screening, triage, initial stabilization and treatment, and recognition of acute and chronic conditions and disease processes often seen in students. It aims to utilize modern methods of learning for the audience to improve retention and implementation, such as algorithms, mnemonics, infographics, case studies, tables and lists, etc. Authors have been recruited, both regionally and nationally, with expertise in school-based health, general pediatrics, developmental pediatrics, subspecialty pediatrics, mental and behavioral health, infectious diseases, sports medicine, emergency medicine, and adolescent medicine. These authors run the gamut of clinical physicians, basic scientists, school nurses and advance practice providers. The text is structured into ten main sections with several associated chapters within each section. The ten sections cover anarray of topics of utmost importance for a school-based health provider, including medical conditions and disease, trauma and sports medicine, and mental/behavioral health. Each chapter is structured with a brief description of the topic/field, innovations within the topic/field (including current research), screening or recognition of the disease or injury, care plans for students with the disease or injury, complications associated with the disease or injury that may present in the school setting, triage based on the presentation (either to an emergency department, urgent care center, primary care physician’s office, or remain in school), and the future of each topic/field/diagnosis with respect to school-based health. Written by experts in the field, Clinical Considerations in School-based Health is innovative in that the focus is on clinical school-based health, supporting recommendations based on the evidence and research, utilizing innovative methods oflearning (algorithms, mnemonics, infographics, case studies, etc.), covering “hot topics” not often seen in other school-based health books and resources, with a targeted audience of stakeholders in school-based health (physicians, medical and nursing students, school nurses, and advanced practice providers), encouraging collaboration amongst these stakeholders.