Reviewed By Gerri Harvey, RN, M.Ed, NCSN Individualized Healthcare Plans for School Nurses Edited By Cynthia Silkworth, Martha Arnold, Judith Harrigan & Donna Zaigler This comprehensive reference will help school nurses to move into 21st century school nursing! It was just published in July, 2005. It is much more than a collection of care plans. It also provides a foundation of practice frameworks and includes a software CD for creating and customizing the care plans. It begins with twelve chapters of frameworks that focus on the challenges and realities of school nursing today, addressing such issues as delegation, evidence-based practice, NANDA, NIC and NOC, HIPAA and FERPA, integrating IHPs with Special Education and 504 plans, insurance reimbursement, crisis planning, and even wellness promotion. A separate section on special student issues covers chronic health conditions, disabilities, homelessness, medically fragile children and more, with emphasis on what the school nurse needs to know. Although there are four editors for this refererence book, the twelve introductory chapters are also authored by other well-known authorities whose names will be familiar to school nurses who keep on top of our profession; including Deborah Ilardi, Martha Dewey Bergren, Denise Herrman, and Jan Denehy, just to name a few. Each IHP topic listed in the publisher's description includes an overview of the condition, nursing assessment, intervention, goals and outcomes measures as well as all of the Nursing Diagnoses related to the condition. The plan itself is then presented in the familiar 5 column nursing care plan format. As if this were not enough, a disk is also included. The plans are on the disk and the school nurse can individualize them for her students following the steps on the disk. The disk is easy to use and works in both Mac and PC formats. Although the price seems high at first glance (much more than the now out-of-print original IHP Sourcebook) in my opinion, it is a bargain for all that you get: an excellent updated framework for our nursing specialty; 57 IHP's; and a disk that will save you many hours and ensure that you do not miss a thing, whether you are creating your nursing care plan or a classroom IHP. If you do only one thing for your professional development, knowledge advancement and professional accountability this year, I highly recommend that this reference book be at the top of the list! |
