New state order helps schools treat respiratory distress

Undesignated medications are not prescribed for a specific student but can be used in an emergency to address any student’s symptoms related to asthma or other respiratory issues.

Each school previously had to seek out and secure its own standing order from a physician in their area to keep the medication.

Quincy Public Schools works with its medical director on standing orders for daily and emergency medicines, including undesignated EpiPens and inhalers, so Vohra’s order won’t mean any changes in QPS.

“We already have a program in place. It works very well,” QPS Nursing Director Brandy Kirby said. “For schools that don’t have medical directors, they’re writing the standing order for them which is very helpful for those schools.”

Undesignated medicines get used a lot in QPS.

“Usually it’s kiddos that maybe we didn’t know they had asthma and didn’t have anything on file or they forgot their medicine,” Kirby said.

Camp Point Central School Nurse Jenny Hetzler said her district also already works with a medical director to keep the medications on hand.

“There’s not a huge need for it for our district. Most kids that need inhalers have them, and knock on wood, we don’t run across any new situations for people that would need to use an inhaler,” Hetzler said.

The standing order will enhance the efforts of RESCUE Illinois Schools program established after passage of the state’s asthma medication law in 2018 which allows school to store and administer undesignated asthma medication.

The Resources for Every School Confronting Unexpected Emergencies program — an initiative of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America-MidStates Chapter in partnership with the Respiratory Health Association — secured state funding to provide medication, equipment and an implementation handbook to more than 3,100, or about 80%, to date of the state’s public schools.

“The change will be now we’ve been sent free inhalers from the state. That will help with the nursing budget. They are expensive,” Kirby said.

Hetzler said having inhalers at school also can be a benefit to parents.

“Typically insurance will cover one, so a lot have an inhaler in the bookbag to have one at school,” she said. “This way they don’t need to get an extra one for school. We will have inhalers here.”

Brown County School Nurse Christi Goudschaal said her district is waiting to get inhalers through the program launched for the 2023-24 year.

“Just like the EpiPens that we keep for allergy emergencies, this will be a great addition to emergency meds available to those students in need,” Goudschaal said.

“Thankfully we have only had a few incidents, and they’ve already had an inhaler on file,” she said. “This will benefit students in need during times of respiratory distress that may benefit from having an inhaler that they may not have had through their primary doctor, especially if it’s an undiagnosed condition.”