NEW KNOWLEDGE, INNOVATION AND IMPROVEMENTS
Population Health Leaders
Sharing Peer to Peer Knowledge and Building Community
Through Technology.
Clinical manager Christine Perreault, MHA,
BSN, and her team of school nurse consultants
get requests for professional development
opportunities all the time, especially from
school nurses in rural communities. To meet
that demand, Perreault and clinical practice
specialist Lisa Davis, ND, RN, partnered with
ECHO Colorado, a nonprofit that helps public
health professionals spread knowledge to
improve patient care. Together, they designed,
implemented and evaluated a multi-cohort,
four-week ECHO educational series on caring for
students with diabetes.
The “School Nurses Managing Diabetes”
series launched in February and April 2018,
bringing together field experts such as pediatric
nursing research fellow Pam Brunner Nii, from
Children’s Colorado’s School Health Program,
as well as the Barbara Davis Center for
Childhood Diabetes.
ECHO series are provided via a telehealth
technology platform, allowing attendees to
sign on through laptops or smartphones.
In this interactive, engaging, dynamic forum,
school nurses not only accessed education on
managing diabetes in schools from content
matter experts, but also had the opportunity
to share knowledge and expertise and build a
sense of community.
School nurses serve as population health
leaders, providing highly complex coordinated
care to increasing numbers of children in
educational settings. The need for ongoing
continuing education in collaborative, peer-to-
peer learning environments is critical to care for
children in schools.
Nurses who participated in the learning
series received an online retrospective survey
that assessed self-efficacy and participant
satisfaction, and that anticipated practice
change. Their responses to both the quantitative
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and open-ended questions indicated their
overall satisfaction with the value of the
experience and delivery of the series.
“I appreciate the expertise of the
presenters, starting with the basics and
then progressing each week to include
the other aspects of insulin management,
carbohydrate counting, variables with
exercise and developmentally appropriate
care. The discussion time went by very fast
and was well facilitated to address areas of
concern we deal with every day. I was able
to use the knowledge learned after the first
session in my daily practice and it seemed
to get better every week.”
-RESPONDENT
The partnership between our school nurse
consultants and ECHO Colorado was successful
not only in the management of diabetes, but also
led to a “School Nurse Managing Neurological
Conditions” learning series. These series
continue to reduce professional isolation and
increase self-efficacy of school nurses providing
and managing complex care, which improves
overall care and safety for students.
LISA DAVIS
CHRISTINE PERREAULT
PAM BRUNNER NII
Population Health | 27