24.
Commissioners Court - Regular Session
- Meeting Date:
- 11/26/2024
- Title:
- New Part-Time Nurse Position for Juvenile Services
- Submitted By:
- John Pelczar, Juvenile Services
- Department:
- Juvenile Services
- Agenda Category:
- Regular Agenda Items
Information
Agenda Item
Discuss, consider and take appropriate action on creating a new part-time Nurse position for Juvenile Services.
Background
Juvenile Services is requesting a new part-time Nurse position be created. Currently, we have a nurse funded under temporary funding, but this employee recently reached capacity at 130 days allowed per rolling calendar year. Due to department needs, we would like to move this to a part-time position, as the alternative is to wait several months until more days are allowed, which is not feasible to ensure adequate medical care is being provided to the youth in our care. The creation of this position, along with our current nursing staff, will allow the department to have a nurse present in the facility at least 12 hours per day, 7 days per week.
The medical team is responsible for providing services to the JJAEP campus, detention to include intakes and releases, and the CORE residential program. The medical staff on duty is responsible for ordering from CPL, drawing, labeling, and processing any labs ordered by our providers, assessing any injuries, illnesses, emergent complaints or concerns, completing post code 99 assessments for all code 99’s and backtracking to complete any assessments for codes that were called during the hours that medical staff was not on duty, preparing medications for administration at least twice a day (and sometimes as many as four times a day depending on how it is ordered), administering medications a minimum of twice a day and documenting the administration, refusals, concerns, complaints, etc, administering as needed psychiatric medications when requested by the youth, completing health screenings for every intake at the time of intake and backtracking to complete health screenings of intakes that came in while the nurse was off duty, completing health appraisal assessments for every detained youth, completing a sick call clinic to address resident needs/concerns twice a week, completing Dr. Benold’s clinic twice a week, completing psych clinic once a week, contacting all parents for confirmation of medications and/or allergies, medical histories, etc of each detained youth, communicating with the parent/guardian, JPO, community provider to ensure the youth has minimal delay in obtaining and receiving their medication while in our care, scheduling, confirming, and managing the psychiatric schedule for the juvenile department to include field youth, obtaining and managing the medical information in JCMS as well as obtaining records from community providers, accepting medications from parent/guardian when brought to the facility, ordering and picking up medications from the local pharmacy following psychiatric clinic, notifying parents of detention youth who need refills and assisting in picking those up when necessary. Scheduling any outside appointments for dental, vision, endocrinology, neurology, etc as ordered or recommended by the medical director or mental health team.
In addition to their responsibilities listed above, the medical staff has seen an increase in complex medical cases. Some of the more recent complex medical cases include, youth diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, an increase in the number of youth with anxiety/panic attacks, asthma, and lower functioning youth that are diagnosed with autism, intellectual disability, and function below their peers. These cases take more time from the nurse and if only one person is staffing medical it is very difficult to complete everything in an efficient, caring, nurturing way.
The medical team is responsible for providing services to the JJAEP campus, detention to include intakes and releases, and the CORE residential program. The medical staff on duty is responsible for ordering from CPL, drawing, labeling, and processing any labs ordered by our providers, assessing any injuries, illnesses, emergent complaints or concerns, completing post code 99 assessments for all code 99’s and backtracking to complete any assessments for codes that were called during the hours that medical staff was not on duty, preparing medications for administration at least twice a day (and sometimes as many as four times a day depending on how it is ordered), administering medications a minimum of twice a day and documenting the administration, refusals, concerns, complaints, etc, administering as needed psychiatric medications when requested by the youth, completing health screenings for every intake at the time of intake and backtracking to complete health screenings of intakes that came in while the nurse was off duty, completing health appraisal assessments for every detained youth, completing a sick call clinic to address resident needs/concerns twice a week, completing Dr. Benold’s clinic twice a week, completing psych clinic once a week, contacting all parents for confirmation of medications and/or allergies, medical histories, etc of each detained youth, communicating with the parent/guardian, JPO, community provider to ensure the youth has minimal delay in obtaining and receiving their medication while in our care, scheduling, confirming, and managing the psychiatric schedule for the juvenile department to include field youth, obtaining and managing the medical information in JCMS as well as obtaining records from community providers, accepting medications from parent/guardian when brought to the facility, ordering and picking up medications from the local pharmacy following psychiatric clinic, notifying parents of detention youth who need refills and assisting in picking those up when necessary. Scheduling any outside appointments for dental, vision, endocrinology, neurology, etc as ordered or recommended by the medical director or mental health team.
In addition to their responsibilities listed above, the medical staff has seen an increase in complex medical cases. Some of the more recent complex medical cases include, youth diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, an increase in the number of youth with anxiety/panic attacks, asthma, and lower functioning youth that are diagnosed with autism, intellectual disability, and function below their peers. These cases take more time from the nurse and if only one person is staffing medical it is very difficult to complete everything in an efficient, caring, nurturing way.
Fiscal Impact
| From/To | Acct No. | Description | Amount |
|---|
Attachments
No file(s) attached.
Form Review
| Inbox | Reviewed By | Date |
|---|---|---|
| County Judge Exec Asst. | Becky Pruitt | 11/05/2024 11:33 AM |
- Form Started By:
- John Pelczar
- Started On:
- 11/04/2024 11:01 AM
- Final Approval Date:
- 11/05/2024