Two school districts, one hospital, MDH, and local public health working together to improve care for students with asthma. Creating linkages and sharing knowledge across care settings is a great way to build capacity for schools and health systems to provide evidence-based asthma care and ensure that students' asthma is managed appropriately and is well-controlled. An excellent example of a cross system collaboration is an August 2021 asthma training for Independent School District 191 school health services staff. Judy Wohnoutka, a Public Health Nurse (PHN) with Dakota County Public Health, received a request from Bernadette Bien, Lead Licensed School Nurse (LSN) with Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191, to provide an asthma training for her school health services staff. The training resulted in a very successful collaboration that brought together two school districts, one hospital, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), and a Local Public Health agency. The idea for the training was "sparked" during a school nurse meeting that resulted in Bernadette contacting Judy from Dakota County. Judy reached out to MDH Asthma Program RN Susan Ross for technical assistance. Susan sent out a request to RNs who had received asthma program funded scholarships to the Asthma Educator Institute (AEI), asking for volunteers to assist with this training. Chinyere Obasi, an LSN and asthma educator with St. Paul Public Schools ISD 625 accepted the opportunity. Chinyere reached out to Melissa Damas, a Respiratory Therapist (RT) with Children's Minnesota who Chi had worked with to implement an Asthma Friendly Schools Mini-grant training in her school a few years ago. Together, they provided an in-person, meaningful and well-received training for ISD 191 health services staff. The one-hour training for thirteen school health services personnel included health assistants, LPNs, RNs, and LSNs. Participants were engaged in the training and asked important questions, which helped presenters clarify some confusing issues for attendees. MDH staff provided asthma resources including powerpoint slides and educational materials to support the training. "The success of the presentation reflected the effective collaboration of both the organizers and the presenters. Combining the clinical background of the RT and her educational knowledge made for an impactful training." Chinyere Chi, LSN, ISD 625 "As a hospital practitioner, it's not often that I am able to collaborate with school nurses and combine our skill sets to help improve the care we provide to patients with asthma; so, this was especially enjoyable." Melissa Damas, RT, Children's Minnesota "The timing was perfect, because a student's asthma action plan at school included a powdered dose inhaler, which was covered in the training. The Respiratory Therapist (RT) was great and provided many user-friendly teaching tools and tricks when working with students and the LSN provided more of the scientific asthma information. Together they augmented each other." Training Participant This collaboration between state, local public health, a hospital and two different school districts resulted in a unique and impactful educational experience – for all involved. |
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