Finding a system that thinks like a nurse
Patty Kenyon has dedicated over 20 years to School District U-46, first as a school nurse and now as the Health Services Supervisor.
Having grown up in and graduated from the district herself, Patty is deeply committed to ensuring that the nearly 39,000 students in her district receive the highest standard of care.
For years, Patty’s team struggled with documentation challenges due to limitations in their Student Information System (SIS).
"Our SIS is a great system for enrollment and attendance, but it wasn’t a strong system for nursing," Patty explained.
Despite multiple attempts to work with their SIS provider to improve the nursing module, it became clear that their needs wouldn’t be met. Documentation was difficult, medication scheduling was frustrating, and there was no audit trail to track changes.
"If people claimed that things were changed or updated, we couldn’t say yes they were or no they weren’t. We had no certainty because there was no way to track that. That’s not okay when you have a nursing license. What you’re documenting and when you lock it, it’s your documentation with your name on it. Nobody else should be able to touch that," Patty emphasized.
"We tried to make it work for many years but it just didn’t work."
Determined to find a system built for school health professionals, Patty and her team researched various platforms, met with multiple companies, and crafted an RFP based on their findings. Ultimately, they selected August Schools.
“It's been a great decision, I don’t regret it for a second,” Patty said.
Once the district finalized its decision, they worked closely with the August team to tailor the platform to their needs.
“It was really nice to have a team that was willing to listen to us and say, ‘What would you like it to look like?’ And when we gave them feedback, they made it happen.”
Patty was impressed by how collaborative the onboarding process was.
“The team was so great during onboarding, and they continue to be. They were always very open and honest and welcoming to our feedback and willing to make adjustments and tweaks to serve us better.”
One of the biggest benefits was working with Laura, a former school nurse who now helps develop August Schools.
“Laura knows the protections we need for our licenses, she knows what kinds of documents we need. It’s so great that August has a nurse because other systems don’t. She just gets it.”
For U-46 nurses, the ability to chart more effectively has been a game-changer.
“The charting has had the biggest impact on our team. With August they have the choice, they can use the dropdowns, they can use the narrative charting, whatever they’re more comfortable with. It gives them that variety and that flexibility to be able to document things appropriately. We’re no longer limited by just using dropdowns because dropdowns don’t always capture all the details, you want to be able to fill in some of those gaps and some of those questions.”
August Schools has also improved coordination within schools.
“In some of our bigger high schools, we have a building nurse, a certified school nurse, and a self-contained classroom nurse. Now they can all see what’s happening. The building nurse might be getting slammed upstairs with kids visiting and the self-contained nurse can say, ‘I don’t have a tube feeding for another half hour, let me come upstairs and help you see a couple kids.’”
The ability to track workload has made staffing decisions much more strategic.
“We can see exactly what’s happening in the building. How many services are being provided, how many meds are given on a daily basis, what is the acuity looking like, so we know where we can provide the additional support. No one is bearing a heavier load than someone else.”
Medication management has also seen a major improvement.
Patty tells her nurses that when they started, they had a “nursing mindset,” but years of using a system built by “a man in a cubicle" forced them to adapt to a rigid, non-clinical way of thinking.
“you can think like a nurse again. This system is intuitive.”
Administratively, August has provided much-needed flexibility and oversight.
“We can see everything going on in real time,” Patty said.
“If I need to move a nurse from one site to another, I can instantly go in and change their access. I don’t have to go through Information Services and justify the request, I just do it.”
“Schools speak data,” Patty noted.
“Being able to quantify the work we do on a daily basis and put those numbers in front of people really matters. This is how many emergency meds we’ve given this year, this is how many 911 calls we’ve had. Data talks, and August allows us to capture that data.”
For districts looking for a nursing solution, Patty has no hesitation in recommending August Schools.
“100% I recommend August. If your district is willing to let your nurses move into a system that is specifically built for the nursing responsibilities in a school, this is the system I would use. It’s been nothing but positive for us.”