Insights: the Magnus Health Blog

I'm happy to let you in on a bit of a secret: we have some really, really good webinars coming your way. Not just any webinars, guest expert webinars. A full lineup will be announced soon, but what I can tell you here and now, is that February 17, from 2-3 PM Eastern, guest expert Missy Fraser will present on traumatic brain injuries and recent research. Missy will speak from her own experiences and research at The Matthew A. Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, and the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes.

During this webinar, Missy will answer the following questions:

• What are the effects of cognitive and physical rehabilitation on Return to Play (RTP)? 
• Head Impact Sensors: What's out there? How can you use them? Are they all they're cracked up to be?
• Long-term impact: Can sport-related head impacts result in long-term cognitive, physical, or emotional changes?

It's been a busy month here at Magnus HQ. We've been hosting webinars, showcasing client success stories, chatting about K-12 technology, and even spending a few spare moments volunteering in our community. There's a good chance you may not have caught it all as it happened, which is why we've got a quick January recap below. Let's get to it!

We're not all serious talk about student health information and school health forms here at Magnus. We like to learn about everything school related, including the unique world of boarding schools. So, recently I asked an online community of boarding school staff members what their favorite part of working at a boarding school is. The feedback was overwhelming.

Directors of Operations, Deans, Administrative Assistants, Directors of Admissions, and Educators all rushed to share their stories of working at boarding schools and what their experiences mean to them. The one theme that each person shared: A sense of community.

My mother is an elementary school media specialist, and she always taught me never to dog-ear a book. As a result, I own a number of bookmarks. Sure, they masquerade as other things - receipts, wrapping paper, socks - but their real purpose in life, the reason they were put on this Earth, is to function as cutting-edge bookmarks. Why? Because there is nothing more frustrating than re-reading something 12 times, or being in the middle of what can only be described as the greatest love story mankind has ever been privy to (thank you, Nicholas Sparks), and losing your place because a child needs attention, or you fall asleep and the book falls off the bed. You see, these are real issues, and bookmarks fix them. Such a small thing, but what a big invention.

Flipped classrooms. Bring Your Own Device days. Smart Boards. iPads. If you recognize any one of these concepts, then you know how essential technology has become in K-12 schools. Gone are the days of shying away from virtual classes and student laptops. Now, schools and teachers embrace technology as a resource for investigative learning. Now, educational technology is a concept of the present and the future.

To limit your school’s liability risks, you must protect students from all kinds of safety threats. It’s important to not only be prepared for the obvious and established threats, but also for the emerging threats that could catch you off-guard. One of those emerging threats relates to the management of student health information. To dig a little deeper into this topic, we did a brief Q&A with our CEO, Chas Scarantino.

Q: What types of student health information are schools managing today?

A: Schools have to manage any medical information required for healthcare and treatment, concussions, enrollment, or attendance purposes. Data on immunizations, sports physical data, consent to dispense prescription or over the counter medication, consent to treat, action plans, and health history are just a few of the many types of health information that schools may be managing. Nearly all of this information is private information, and as such, it presents liability for a school if it is handled incorrectly.

If you've been following us for a while, you know that we like to spend time volunteering in the community - not for good karma points, but because we really do enjoy it. We've made arts and crafts with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wake County, we've held dodgeball tournaments to benefit local school health services, and this year, we decided to use Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as another opportunity to volunteer our time.

Thanks to the United Way and their Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, finding volunteer opportunities was easy. The hard part was deciding which volunteer project to be a part of. We decided on gardening, then got ready to throw on torn jeans and old tennis shoes. "Gardening" is a loose term, though. In all actuality we were trailblazers with shovels.

Have you ever wondered how software goes from zero to a finished, working product? I know I do. It's such a mysterious and magical process! Sometimes I wonder if we have Keebler Elves working behind the scenes at Magnus Health. But then I remember that we just have a talented team of software engineers that turn ideas into a working reality. Our engineers are basically human 3-D printers when you think about it.

But after our engineers (or Keebler Elves) successfully build a new feature for school health centers, there's still work to be done. This is where John Krahnert comes in. He helps make sure that each newly created software feature is up to par. How? We'll discuss that in just a minute. But first, I'm more intrigued to find out how a reporter/editor-turned-flight-instructor found his way to Quality Assurance at a software startup.

Technology has made its way into every facet of education - the front office, the health office, classrooms, athletics - and now it appears education technology can help prevent lost instructional time on snow days, too. While the concept of e-learning has been around for some time, only recently has it become a way to alleviate the school calendar headaches that come along with inclement weather-related closings.

According to the Education Commision of the States, laws vary from state to state on the minimum number of instructional days that students are required to have per year, but most require 180. In the midst of a particularly harsh winter in 2013-14, many schools and districts were forced to find creative ways to keep students on track to hit that number. Policies that allowed for e-learning days were the solution adopted in several areas of the country to minimize the impact of inclement weather.