Akron Children’s Hospital and Warren City Schools report high clinic return-to-class rates, expand asthma and telehealth programs

Akron Children’s Hospital and Warren City Schools presented an annual nursing and school-based health update at the Warren City School District Board of Education meeting on June 3, reporting that clinics returned about 95% of students to class after visits and describing programs aimed at reducing absenteeism and emergency-room visits.

The update, given primarily by Janine Fitzpatrick, an Akron Children’s-affiliated practitioner, focused on how school-based health services support attendance and learning. “We are the foundation of you producing successful students academically,” Fitzpatrick said, noting clinicians measure success by the share of students sent back to class after clinic visits.

Fitzpatrick said clinic volume is high and varies by month, with predictable peaks such as flu season and the start of the school year. She said chronic conditions tracked by the district include asthma, diabetes, life‑threatening allergies and seizures, and that asthma is a frequent cause of absence: “One in five students in a classroom have asthma,” she said.

The presentation outlined several district programs and outcomes: - A district policy permitting stock inhalers has reduced severe asthma incidents; Fitzpatrick reported only five EMS calls for asthma in the past year. - A school-based asthma maintenance program that allows daily maintenance inhalers at school produced an average asthma control-test score increase from 18.6 to 24.2 for participating students, the presentation said. - Telehealth is in active use: when a primary practitioner is busy, six other nurse practitioners can provide telehealth visits using high-resolution equipment that staff say often gives better visualization than in-person exams, enabling faster prescriptions and return to class. - The district’s school-based health center sees high volume: the presenter said one nurse practitioner, Allison Lance, “averages over a thousand kids seen in a school year.” The district and Akron Children’s plan to add a nurse over the summer for care coordination to reach students currently missed by services. - The Youth Advisory Council (YAC), led by school health staff, ran events such as a May 9 prom-safety program and student leadership activities focused on vaping prevention and health education.

Fitzpatrick and district staff linked the clinical work to academic outcomes, noting that returning students to class reduces lost instructional time. Presentation materials also cited declines in emergency-room visits for the district and steady chronic-illness counts, with a small increase in diabetes diagnoses.

The presenters framed school health services as a continuing priority: Akron Children’s and district staff described telehealth expansion and added care-coordination staffing as near-term steps to increase access and maintain the reported clinical outcomes.

The board discussion that followed did not record any vote tied to the presentation; the item was an informational report.