Missouri

Missouri public schools has nearly 3,000 students with diabetes. To help students manage their health conditions while at school, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (MDHSS) ensured school nurses received the most up-to-date information on how to serve these students by developing a rapid e-learning module based on the National Diabetes Education Program’s updated publication, Helping the Student with Diabetes Succeed: A Guide for School Personnel. These updates include managing students with type 2 diabetes, additional information on diabetes equipment and supplies for blood glucose monitoring, meal planning, carbohydrate counting and psychosocial issues affecting students with diabetes.

MDHSS’ Bureau of Community Health and Wellness partnered with a school nurse well-versed in diabetes care to review the guidelines and draft a script for the training module. The Bureau partnered with Truman University, a land-grant institution,   to create a fun and instructive training.

Impact

Over 700 of the 1,593 school nurses have taken the diabetes e-learning module as of spring/early summer 2017. Knowledge scores have shown  a significant (P<.05) increase from pre-test (M=12.77/20) to post-test (M=17.17/20) To sustain this training effort, the module has been posted on the Truman University websiteExternal and will also be posted on the websites of  the  Missouri Coordinated School Health and the Missouri Association of School Nurses.

MDHSS will share this approach to rapid e-learning module with other state school nurse consultants and will track outcomes.  A follow-up survey will be sent to the Missouri school nurses to determine impact in early 2018.