School-Based Health Care
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition.
This project also has a Changeshop where you can read more about its latest progress.
Go to Changeshop: School Health Clinics.
Our school-based health centers provide quality health care to medically under-served students to ensure that they are healthy, in school and ready to learn.
About You
About You
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Education Plus Health
Organization Website
Organization Country
United States, PA, Philadelphia County
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, PA, Philadelphia County
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
In October 2011, our partners at Temple University presented our model of school-based health clinics in the Temple University Fox School of Business Innovative Idea Competition. The panel of judges awarded our project first prize and we were also the recipients of the "people's choice" award which was based on audience votes.
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
Tine Hansen-Turton: tine@nncc.us, 215-731-7140.
A partner in our project, Tine serves as the CEO of the nonprofit National Nursing Centers Consortium and the Chief Strategy Officer for the nonprofit Public Health Management Corporation. She co-founded the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal and received the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, the Philadelphia Business Journal 40 under 40 Leadership Award, the Philadelphia Connector and the American Express NextGen Fellow.
Nancy Rothman: rothman@temple.edu, 215-707-5436.
Also a partner in our project, Nancy is a professor of urban community nursing and the Director of Community-based Practices at the Temple University College of Health Professions and Social Work.
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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Growth (your pilot is up and running, and starting to expand)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for 1‐5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Medically underserved students throughout Philadelphia and across the country face various obstacles to school success, including poor health and lack of access to quality, timely, and affordable medical care. In addition to greater likelihood of underperformance in school, underserved and unhealthy students are also at high risk of truancy and dropout.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
Our nurse-managed school-based health centers bring quality primary care to medically underserved students where they belong, in school, to ensure that they are healthy and ready to learn. The health centers target medically-underserved students in grades Pre-K through 8 at two sites in Philadelphia: Pan American Academy Charter School in Eastern North Philadelphia and Belmont Charter School in West Philadelphia. The school-based health centers are operated by nurse practitioners from Temple University, who offer primary care services, preventive services, social services, dental services, vision services and health outreach and education to all students at the Pan American and Belmont schools. In addition, they help students manage chronic disease conditions such as asthma and diabetes and are able to prescribe medications and coordinate care with the children’s own pediatricians. As a result children have greater chances of staying healthy and being ready to learn in school.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
The school based health center is a partnership between Education Plus Health, the National Nursing Centers Consortium, Pan American Academy Charter School, Belmont Charter School and the Temple University College of Health Professions and Social Work. The health centers are staffed by an interdisciplinary team of nurse practitioners who are nursing professors and nursing students from Temple University serving their curriculum-required community-based clinical rotations. The team offers preventive health services, primary care services, dental services, vision services, behavioral health services, and health and wellness education. Preventive health services offered to children include screenings for common chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes, immunizations, and home assessments to determine environmental and health risks.
The health centers reduce overall medical costs by decreasing the overuse of the emergency room (ER) by students who lack a reliable medical home. To date, the health center model has proven to decrease truancy rates in students, as parents are able to send their children to school because of the ability of the nurse practitioner to manage the children’s illness. This chronic disease management has helped to reduce the number of student absences due to illness and missed classroom time for medical appointments. Attendance rates increased from 94% to 99% at Pan American Academy after the first year of the health center’s implementation.
The two health centers combined serve over 1,100 students (450 at Pan American and 650 at Belmont).
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
The alternative to our nurse practitioner model is the traditional school nurse. The traditional school nurse model cannot provide primary care, immunizations, physicals, or prescriptions like the master’s or doctoral prepared primary care nurse practitioner. Furthermore, the traditional school nurse is typically not in the school fulltime whereas the Temple Department of Nursing model places nurse practitioners and nursing students in the school clinic during all school hours, 5 days a week. Finally, the traditional school nurse focuses more on managing illnesses while our model places a higher priority on preventing illnesses and keeping children in school and healthy, emphasizing health promotion, disease prevention, chronic and acute disease management and wellness education.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
As I sat waiting for our Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia (CSFP) board meeting to commence in October 2009, I spoke with a fellow member, Nicolas Torres. "I hate October. It's the worst time of year in schools because school nurses start sending home children who haven't had their immunizations completed," I commented. Nick responded, "you need to meet a friend of mine." Weeks later, I had connected with Tine Hansen-Turton, and we had teamed with Nick to launch our new project of the nurse-managed, primary-care, school-based health center in Philadelphia. Within our team, Nick brings expertise of the educational system; Tine brings a history of health care policy and innovation; and I bring a knowledge of the inner workings of the Philadelphia public school system and student health. We opened the first school-based health center in the Pan American school in 2010, followed by the health center at Belmont Charter School in 2011.
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
Our goal is simple, yet far-reaching: to see all students healthy, in school, and ready to learn. We are working to achieve this through expanding our model of nurse practitioner-managed school-based health care to the city of Philadelphia and beyond.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
Attendance rates increased from 94% to 99% at Pan American Academy after the first year of the health center’s implementation. During the 2010-2011 school year, Pan American Academy health center served more than 450 vulnerable students, with an average daily patient volume of 40 children. Following the tremendous success of the health center at Pan American, Education-Plus, Inc. and its partners opened a health center at Belmont Charter School in West Philadelphia which serves approximately 650 students, bringing the total number of students served in both schools to over 1,100.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
The Education Plus Health school-based health centers in Philadelphia currently serve over 1,100 students total. There are over 154,482 public school students in Philadelphia, and 40,483 charter school students. We currently target charter schools, which represent about 26% of the public school system in the city. The potential customer base would be all charter schools in Philadelphia, and potentially beyond. Within five years we plan on scaling the model and opening 4 new school-based health centers, which would expand our reach to approximately 2,500 new students. We also plan on securing reimbursement for our students who are Medicaid-eligible.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Secure Medicaid reimbursement funding.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Master the use of electronic record system and track student health data.
Task 2
Fill financial gap for health centers through fundraising.
Task 3
Ensure that all eligible students are enrolled in state insurance plan.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Open a new school-based health center.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Secure Medicaid reimbursement funding.
Task 2
Create new partnerships between charter schools and nurse practitioners.
Task 3
Fund-raise for start-up costs.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
The school based health center is a partnership between Education Plus Health, the National Nursing Centers Consortium, Pan American Academy Charter School, Belmont Charter School and the Temple University College of Health Professions and Social Work Department of Nursing. The health centers are staffed by nurse practitioners/nursing professors from Temple University who are assisted by Temple nursing and public health students who are serving their curriculum-required clinical rotations.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
We are targeting Philadelphia charter schools for the Education Plus Health school-based health center model; however, as state affiliate of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC), we are also connected to the nationwide movement of school-based health care. Our target beneficiaries are medically under-served students, many of whom suffer from chronic diseases like asthma.
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
The commitment and passion of our small team does not allow for the failure of our model of school-based health care. Each individual contributes a unique and crucial skill to the project: including nursing expertise, child health care, instruction and oversight, data tracking, foundation networking, advocacy, fundraising, mentorship, and fostering of new partnerships. With individuals so strongly committed to seeing better health of students in schools, our model of health care has seen substantial success and support in its first year and a half.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
We are currently seeking wider support for our already-established model of school-based health care. This includes both financial support and additional partnerships.
 | 70 weeks ago Emily Bosland said: Hi Elizabeth, I enjoyed reading your entry. Given the increasing cuts to school funding, particularly for traditional school nurse ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 74 weeks ago Molly Porth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 74 weeks ago Molly Porth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 76 weeks ago Molly Porth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 76 weeks ago Molly Porth submitted this idea. |
