Description of the sickbay
The sickbay will have a waiting lounge, pharmacy, consultation room, and an examination room (which will contain an examination table, thermometer, first aid kit, cotton swabs, and stethoscopes among other items necessary for examining patients). Each of these areas is critical because the students will need a place to sit as they wait for their turns to meet the nurse (Richards, 2008). Besides this, they will also have to sit somewhere as they make consultations. Lastly, they will have to be examined in the examination room and collect drugs from the pharmacy. The sickbay will operate on a 24-hour basis as a student can get sick at any time. Therefore, enough medical practitioners will be needed and must work in shifts to ensure that the services are available any time the students need them.
Nurse-led and nurse-managed healthcare
This paper is a school health program that discusses a nurse-managed project meant to help students who fall sick while in school. Specifically, it is about a sickbay managed by a nurse, who brings on doctors and other medical practitioners with the view of treating sick students in the school before they seek further medical attention.
Partnership and collaboration
This is a model developed to aid in treating students in their learning institutions when they are in the session (Norlander, 2011). The sickbay will be funded by the institution itself and other good wishers. Some amount of money will be included in the students’ school fees structure to help in putting up the sickbay and employing the staff. The sickbay will be managed by the school and will partner with the county hospital, which has almost all the facilities required. Hence, this will make it easy for the students in the entire county to access medication in county hospitals.
Continuity of Care Setting
Students in different locations will not be able to access medication in hospitals due to the distances between hospitals and schools. In other words, they will only get medication from the sickbay when they are within the learning institutions. However, some will only get first aid services as their illnesses may be beyond the capacity of the facilities available at the sickbay (Crandall & Kemp, 2007).
Technology
The use of computers will not only be embraced by the receptionists for data entry but will also be taken up by nurses and doctors for reference in case of the recurrence of illnesses and for the sake of general record keeping (Jamieson, McCall & Whyte, 2009). In addition, the doctors will prescribe medication and make other communication through the computer while the pharmacists will get the students’ details and the drugs to administer from the doctor through computerized communication. Computerization hastens service delivery in the sickbay as most of the cases are emergencies, which require quick responses (Richards, 2008).
Development/implementation team for the sickbay
Referrals will be made by the doctor on duty. This means that, after examining a student’s case and categorizing it as severe, he/she will call an ambulance to take the student to the referred hospital. Medical practitioners will work closely with a receptionist, whose major duty will be feeding the students’ details into the computer for recordkeeping. On their part, doctors will examine the students while the nurses and pharmacists will be in charge of administering drugs prescribed for the patients.
The nurses will be involved in making budgets of the requirement of the sickbay and taking care of other financial aspects of the sickbay. In addition, they will be the ones to accompany referred students to the hospital and suggest new innovations for the sickbay (Jamieson, McCall & Whyte, 2009).
Evaluation of the Sick Bay
The sick bay’s primary purpose is to provide first aid, counseling, regular treatments, minor surgeries, and even immunizations such as that of tetanus (Hughes, 2006). Major illnesses and surgeries will be referred to hospitals that have the capacity to handle them. Therefore, the sickbay is not meant to replace hospitals but to reduce fatalities and the worsening of illnesses due to the long distances between schools and hospitals.
The sickbay will be helpful in reducing the number of students leaving school in search of treatment. Hence, it will reduce the rate at which students waste time out of class due to sickness and the resultant stay at home (Jamieson, McCall & Whyte, 2009). It will also be easier to monitor the progress of students as they will be within the institution. The sickbay will also have many other benefits to the students.
For example, the students will have an opportunity to get important information on health-related issues when they visit the sick bays for guidance and counseling services, which will be facilitated by nurses in charge of the sickbay. Hopefully, this project will help many students concentrate on their studies and waste less time seeking medication. If it works as planned, it will help a very big number of students improve their performance in school. It will also save the lives of those in critical conditions.
References
Crandall, S. & Kemp, S. (2007). Sick Bay. Manlius, N.Y.: Featherdown Book/Astoria Productions.
Hughes, F. (2006). Nurses at the forefront of innovation. International Nursing Review, 53(1), 94-101.
Jamieson, E., McCall, J., & Whyte, L. (2009). Clinical nursing practices. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
Norlander, L. (Ed.). (2011). Transformational models of nursing across different care settings. Report: The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health (Appendix G). Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine.
Richards, S. (2008). Operation sick bay. West Vancouver, BC: Cantaur Pub.