Dear Colleagues,
We understand your concerns about the change in the NY state school form and your anticipation of OP creating a report to make it easier for your Practice team to complete. There are several concerns about this form that are being raised by the NY Chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and several pediatric leaders, including both of us.
Firstly, this form suggests collection of information that is not in keeping with Bright Futures evidence-based care. The NY AAP State Chapters have been meeting with the appropriate stakeholders to point out discrepancies and to request changes.
Secondly, much of this information is not easily mapped from an EHR database and will require manual data entry on the part of the Practice. For example, instead of a category called “allergies,” they are requesting separate checkboxes for different kinds of allergies. There is no way for OP software to complete these sections automatically as we don’t have a query that defines all the ICD and SNOMED codes that might fall into each of those allergy categories to check the appropriate boxes.
In addition, it is the opinion of the AAP leadership that they are asking for information that is not necessary for the school to provide safe care and to understand the impacts of health on education. For example, it is not necessarily in the school nurse’s scope of practice to know what the patient’s last HgbA1c was for patients with diabetes. They will not be effectively changing the student’s Plan of Care (it is the school’s responsibility to follow the Plan of Care that Providers implement).
Communications and requests are ongoing and we will keep you informed regarding developments and updates. In the meantime, the school cannot mandate this form for the 2018-2019 school year. The current effective date is 7/18 but the mandatory date (which we are trying to get delayed while we work on changes) is not until the 2019-2020 school year. Here is an excerpt from the FAQs for the New York State Center for School Health website:
Which physical Exam form can I accept next school year 2018-2019?
Although schools should provide and encourage the use of the required form as of 7/1/18, the 2018-2019 school year will be a transition year and ANY health exam form should be accepted. In 2019-2020 school year, the required NYSED Health Examination Form will be the ONLY form accepted. The new form will be available on the NYS Center for School Health Website and NYS Education Department website. It can be downloaded to a variety of electronic systems to help with a seamless transition.
Sincerely,
Gail Schonfeld, MD, FAAP
NY State AAP advocate for changing the school form
Susan Kressly, MD, FAAP
Medical Director, OP
