Rx for student health care

Three brothers underwent sports physicals, received immunization boosters and missed less than an hour of school.

The boys, all students at King Science and Technology Magnet Center, didn't even leave the middle school building. Mom didn't have to miss work to get them to and from a clinic.

King Science, 3720 Florence Blvd., is one of six schools in the Omaha Public Schools housing a health center for the first time this fall.

“School is really where health care needs to be,” said Kathy Hoffman, a nurse practitioner from the Charles Drew Health Center, who runs the school clinics at King Science and Belvedere Elementary.

Omaha's health centers are in schools with a high percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

Putting health care in schools isn't a new idea. Omaha's centers are modeled after an approach used in more than 2,000 schools nationwide, according to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.

Nationally, the centers do just what Hoffman said — bring basic health care to students to keep them in school and reduce emergency room visits and associated costs.

Each of Omaha's centers will serve students who attend the school, those at nearby schools and their minor siblings. The number of centers could expand in the future, said Jeanee Weiss, director of the Healthy Futures initiative for Building Bright Futures.

In Omaha, both OneWorld Community Health Center and the Charles Drew Health Center provided services in schools before. But lack of funding stopped the program. Now they are providing staff to run the new school clinics.

Future clinics could be served by staff from Children's Hospital, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Creighton University Medical Center, which have been involved in planning.

Building Bright Futures, a local education-focused philanthropy effort, has provided money to fund the centers and to conduct data analysis to track their effectiveness in improving students' attendance and academic success.

The cost of medical care will be reimbursed through Medicaid and private insurance. Those eligible for Medicaid who are not enrolled will receive assistance with the application process, Weiss said.

No student will be turned away because of inability to pay.

All the centers are open for part of each school day and for part of summer break.

“We know that there's a lot of need among the school-aged population,” said Richard Brown, chief executive of Charles Drew Health Center. “If you can keep (a person) healthy, everything else is possible.”

The centers also will offer on-site mental and behavioral health treatment. That sets the Omaha centers apart from school-based health care centers in Grand Island. Iowa also has a number of the school-based health centers.

Data from the National Center for Children in Poverty suggest that the centers have the potential to make a difference for students.

The Columbia University-based center's data indicate that fewer than 20 percent of American children in need of mental and behavioral health services receive treatment.

Mental health problems, the data indicate, make a student more likely to miss school (six days or more on average per school year in high school), less likely to graduate and more likely to be expelled from pre-kindergarten programs.

So far, more than 600 Omaha students have been signed up to receive care. The centers now are collecting insurance and health history information, as well as parental consent forms, which are required for a student to receive care.

Each health center has been giving physicals and immunizations since school started in mid-August.

The school-based health centers originally were scheduled to open last winter. But remodeling at each school, coordination of staffing and the passage of a new state law spelling out regulations for such centers meant a delay.

The centers operated for more than a week without computers and some furniture, but staff began seeing children on the first day of school for everything from ear problems to possible bladder infections.

Each center has dedicated space for lab work (and shots), an exam room and an office for a mental and behavioral health specialist who will join the center later this fall. Staff will provide vision and hearing screenings.

Each center is next to the school nurse's office, but the health centers will not replace the services provided by the school nurse, Hoffman said.

Children who don't have a primary care doctor will be referred to OneWorld Community Health Center, Charles Drew Health Center or another primary care doctor for follow-up care. For those with a primary care doctor, school clinic staff will contact the doctor to share information about treatment given and suggested follow-up.

That's important, said Andrea Skolkin, chief executive at OneWorld, because a “medical home” — going to the same doctor, or the same health center for all medical needs — can improve care.

“Children really in deep poverty have some very complex needs,” Skolkin said. “We're hopeful that these new school clinics can begin to address those needs.”

Contact the writer:

444-1037, michaela.saunders@owh.com

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