Charts. Notes. Treatments. Screenings. Logs. Reports. Visits. Whatever you call them (I prefer treatment notes) the documentation you make on student visits and treatment is important. Check that, very important.

Every time a student is treated at the health center, a record needs to be in place, not only for the sake of protecting the health care provider, and the school, but more importantly so that the student has a complete health history. With a full student health history, providers can look at the total picture of health, observe trends, accurately note when something occurred, when a shot was given, or simply note that the student is a frequent flier to the health center.

Doctors’ offices chart every patient visit. Why would a school health center be any different? They shouldn’t be. That’s why we created a versatile treatment note module within our online student medical record. To chart a student visit is easy. Search for a student, click add a note, fill in the blanks, and save. You can prefill treatment notes for commonly treated issues, and specify any fields you want, like medication, complaint, treatment, or additional comments. Every note contains the date, time, and duration of visit. And, schools can decide if they want to share the note with parents. The beauty here is that for a common cough or headache, maybe the nurse doesn’t see the need in alerting the parents. But if the student is a frequent flier, or if something more serious is going on, the nurse may want the parent to get an alert with those details. And believe us, parents will thank you for making the process easy for them, too.