Nurse practitioner helping Clyde-Green Springs students
CLYDE - Clyde-Green Springs Schools have found another way to make life a little easier for students and their parents. The school district has partnered with NOMS Healthcare to provide a nurse practitioner on-site once a week. Hillary Adams, a pediatric nurse practitioner, will visit a different school each week to see students for a variety of needs that fall outside the care of the staff school nurse.
“In Ohio, we can do pretty much everything a physician does, from prescribing medicine to ordering tests. We just have to have a collaborating doctor,” said Adams, a 2006 Fremont Ross graduate.
Adams is available to see students for sickness, sports physicals and well visits, which are annual visits where the child’s physical, mental and social needs are addressed.
“I can test for flu, RSV and strep. Obviously, if the child has a fever, the school nurse will send them home. But if they are borderline, I can see them. Even if the parent comes to pick them up, they don’t have to take their child to the doctor, too,” Adams said.
Adams said students can come to her with any ailment.
“I can see kids for belly pain stuff like constipation and for ear infections and headaches,” she said. “I see a lot of kids for mental health stuff, like ADHD and anxiety and depression.”
Adams’ services are completely voluntary for families, and she only sees students whose parents have signed consent forms.
'We want to include the parents'
“Parents are welcome to come in, or we can Facetime with parents or do televisits,” Adams said. “We want to include the parents. We’re not going to make any big decisions without calling them, so there is a lot of communication with parents.”
No tax money or school funding is used for Adams’ services. Parents pay for the visits, which are billed to the family’s insurance.
“If they’re not a NOMS patient, we work with their current insurance,” said Clyde-Green Springs Schools Superintendent Lucas Messer. “Nobody is funding this, and we don’t make money off it. It just provides a place for her to see kids.”
Physician approached the district about adding a practitioner
The idea to have an on-site nurse practitioner came from NOMS physician, Jennifer Hohman, M.D., who is a Clyde High School graduate.
“Jen Hohman approached me with the idea that we could partner up and offer these services to kids and families,” Messer said. “For families, they don’t have to take the kids out of school for doctor’s appointments, and for kids, it’s another service for appointments or medicine refills.”
Messer saw the partnership is a way to benefit students and their families.
“The parents don’t have to miss work or worry about transportation, and the kids won’t miss instructional time,” he said.
When the program was initially approved, Hohman reached out to Adams about working on-site at the schools.
“Lots of big cities have this,” Adams said. “It was a big vision of Dr. Hohman to get this in schools locally and in rural areas.”
Parents make appointments by calling NOMS directly
Adams started seeing children at the schools on Jan. 4. She is only at the schools on Wednesdays, visiting a different school each week. If the need arises, she will come more often. Parents make appointments for their children by calling NOMS directly.
Messer said he has heard from parents who are concerned that their children will be treated without parental permission, and he wants to assure them that won’t happen.
“It’s optional. You don’t have to have your kids seen here. You don’t have to sign the consent form,” Messer said.
"Hillary is not seeing any students without a consent form, even if they say they have a sore throat. They’ll see the regular nurse for that.”
Contact correspondent Sheri Trusty at sheritrusty4@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: NOMS nurse practitioner visiting Clyde-Green Springs schools
