School Services Data Sharing Project

The Children's National School Services (CSS) nurses collaborated with the IMPACT DC program to investigate a way to obtain patient information on children who were admitted to inpatient services. Representatives from CSS and IMPACT DC approached the Nursing Informatics & Technology Council to add school information to the nursing admission database in order to identify DC children who had an admission to the hospital. The council members agreed to enhance the collection of school information on admission and identified the need for a special report to be automatically sent to the CSS case managers. Collaborating with the Children's Hospital National Medical Center electronic medical record vendor Cerner, CSS specialized the report to contain patient demographics, diagnosis, school name, jurisdiction, and attending physician. The project was implemented for school year 2012-2013 and has been highly successful.

The goal of the data sharing project is to allow for continuity of care of admitted children from hospital to school and to decrease readmissions of the children to the hospital.

The data sharing project has improved communication with the school nurses and the clinical resource management team. In addition, it has helped to identify children with diagnoses other than asthma to school nurses. The project has provided opportunities for health education and collaboration with family and care givers. CSS is also using the data sharing project to decrease re-admissions in children with sickle cell disease. It is working to expand the project to include Virginia and Maryland children.