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Nineteen schools in Indianapolis Public Schools will lose their nurses provided through Indiana University Health when this school year ends, prompting concerns from parents about schools’ ability to respond to emergency health situations or oversee other health care needs.
The announcement from IPS last month means IU Health will end its three-year pilot with the district prematurely. The district, meanwhile, has said that it will search for other nursing providers to fill in at those schools — although four of the 19 are slated to close at the end of this school year.
The partnership with IU Health was meant to last from 2021 to 2024 with funding from federal coronavirus relief dollars. But Indiana University officials cite the nursing shortage as a ubiquitous challenge that has worsened since the start of the pandemic. IU Health officials did not detail why staff shortages prompted it to pull the plug on the nursing program in IPS, but said in a statement it is investing in its workforce to ensure it can meet patient demand and “provide the best clinical care possible.”
The end of the IU Health partnership could leave a large number of IPS schools without a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse to dispense medication or respond to health emergencies, such as hypoglycemic shock. IPS board documents from April 2022 show that 49 buildings out of the district’s 76 school programs (a figure that includes traditional district schools and those in the IPS Innovation network) had either a nurse employed by IPS, a health professional staffed through IU Health, or a school-based health center.
