Families and workplaces serve as pillars of a thriving community
When they’re strong, we’re all strong together.
While school-based telehealth is a solution for chronic absenteeism and learning loss, one of the ultimate payoffs is the ripple effect across our communities, specifically for families and workplaces. Any investment in families is one worth making. And if we can strengthen families’ ability to support our workforce, even better. This is how we begin to foster thriving communities, with practical approaches in which convenience and improved health can set off a positive chain reaction.
Easing the burden on our healthcare system
Emergency departments and medical offices teem with patients to see and people needing care. The constant pressure on healthcare systems makes it difficult to see enough people in a given day and provide the comprehensive appointment they each deserve. If placing clinics inside schools can reduce the number of patients being seen in EDs and offices, that’s a good thing for everyone. School-based telehealth also gives us the opportunity to educate families about how to achieve well-being, which has its own set of positive, cascading effects.
On average, telehealth clinics see 15-20 students each day and address everything from seizures and heat stroke to pneumonia, along with more minor concerns such as headaches and sore throats.
Schools serve the greater good. It’s our responsibility to serve them as well.
Schools educate, nourish, solve complex issues, constantly adapt, and serve all kinds of students and families
in their mission to provide opportunity for all. Anything we can do to support them, we will. As healthcare and education leaders, we offer school-based telehealth as our way to help address the often overwhelming realities and demands of public school education and enable schools to focus on their core goals.
Minimizing impact on families
When a child has a simple problem at school — a headache or a sore throat, for example — there’s no reason to force a parent to leave work. With telehealth, we can connect everyone via a virtual visit and, in most cases, treat the student and send them back to class. For working families and those who are the main caregivers for aging or disabled loved ones, the advent of school-based healthcare is a game changer. In addition to the student staying in school, families are able to remain focused on their responsibilities and avoid the disruptions that affect their jobs and, by extension, the entire family.
“Even though we are not all face-to-face, we’re communicating with each other, and that’s the key.”
Detra Rice, mother
A STRONGER WORKFORCE
- Fewer interruptions to a parent’s workday
- Opportunities for career-building and workforce development — training community members and parents to become CMAs and telepresenters in the schools
- Students who stay in school graduate, earn college degrees and serve pivotal roles in our workforce