Improving the safety of health care for children, particularly of medication and other treatment regimes when they are in school, will be the focus of an invitational conference, Improving Quality in Medication Management in Schools. The conference will be organized by the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools and will be held in April 2003. Recent work by the Institute of Medicine has called attention to the challenges to patient safety, particularly in the area of medication administration. Follow-up work has noted that the safety of the health care environment is one of six areas that require attention. Improving the safety of in-school health care is particularly challenging because health care resources vary dramatically among schools and because education agencies and boards establish many relevant laws, regulations, policies and budgets with limited input from the health care system.
The specific aims of the conference will be to: 1) describe the issues of patient safety in medication management in schools, 2) identify the unique characteristics of in-school medication administration, including the impact of school board policies, local and state laws and regulations, 3) develop and prioritize research topics ready for further study and make recommendations for next steps, and 4) identify approaches for integrating school-based medication management monitoring and quality improvement practices with the larger health care quality improvement systems. The primary outcomes of this project will be a clarification of the issues involved in improving the safety of medication administration in schools, widespread dissemination of these issues among relevant audiences, and generation of discussion concerning next steps. The outcomes will be achieved through stakeholder/expert conference, a pre-conference issue paper, and conference proceedings with recommendations. Recommendations will be published on the Web and in hard copy and disseminated to organizations, agencies and policy makers at all levels of government.
