National Immunization Awareness Month
August has arrived, which means school will soon be underway again. With the tax-free weekend just behind us, no doubt many parents and students are already in the midst of school preparations. In the rush to buy pencils and paper, and the ever-coveted Justin Bieber notebook, don’t forget the importance of immunizations.
August is National Immunization Awareness Month, and while we often think of immunizing children, immunizations are important for people of all ages in order to protect individual and community health. The National Health Information Center provides a toolkit for August, further detailing awareness, immunizations necessary for all ages, and tips on spreading the word. Other guidelines include getting immunizations on time, being conscious of flu season, and keeping all records of immunizations in a safe place.
In all likelihood, for most parents these immunizations have been on the to do list, or completed already, to turn in to the school. Schools use various methods of tracking those immunizations from installed hardware or software for school nurses, medical records programs, and often a spreadsheet. All of these approaches create a headache for nurses and administration, generate a bottleneck with processing when the information pours in, and wastes time and resources to follow up with parents for additional information. Not to mention those with a paper-based system still in place deal with liability due to the risk of confidential information falling into the wrong hands, as well as vulnerability, given that an unforeseen disaster could easily destroy all paper records.
With these frustrations and risks in mind, Magnus Health created the SMR (student medical record), online school health software, to streamline the back-to-school process for schools, and allow for easy on-going management of forms throughout the year. SMR is web-based, so schools using the product create an online health record for each student – one that is securely stored and easily accessible at all times. To learn more, visit our tour page.
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