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by Nancy S. McMillan
The health center is a critical link in developing and
maintaining a safe environment for your campers. However, providing adequate
care to an active young population can be challenging. How should your
health center be set up to best serve your campers? The following ideas
will help you evaluate your health center and determine how you can provide
adequate care while teaching campers personal responsibility.
Assess Your Situation and Set Goals
When evaluating your health center, your first step is
identical to the nursing process and begins with an assessment. Followed
closely behind is the redevelopment of goals. Ideally, both the camp director
and camp medical director or nurse should be involved in the process.
Population served
Questions that need to be addressed begin with the desired level of care
the camp will be capable and willing to provide (e.g., a basic first-aid
station and triage center or a more complex level of a care requiring
sophisticated equipment and a highly skilled staff of professionals).
Part of this decision will be based on the population you serve, the length
of camp sessions, and the activities offered. Will your population be
mostly "well" staff and children? Will you expand to include
differently abled children? If so, have you determined the review process
and facility changes necessary to make their stay successful? Does your
camp specialize in one particular type of illness or syndrome? Does your
camp provide off-camp experiences? Do you offer unusual activities that
might require special endurance or medical clearance?
Size of center
A determining factor for the size of your health center is accessibility
of medical care in the surrounding community. Are you located in a rural
area with only basic emergency care provided or is there a trauma-level
hospital offering timely life flight services close by?
Contract of care
Another important piece of data collection is your contract with the parent
for the level of care you provide and the type of disabilities and chronic
illnesses you can reasonably support. Even if you are working with only
"well" campers, you will need to be able to manage both environmental
disasters, such as hurricanes and tornados, and medical disasters, such
as an epidemic or a mass trauma.
Assess the Areas of Camp Impacted by
the Health Center
Once you have established goals for the health center,
the next step is to look at all the areas of camp the health center impacts.
- Campers and counselors: The health center provides medical
support and supervision as needed, including medication management,
temporary and long-term treatment of common episodic injuries and illnesses,
and problem-solving difficult behavior and adjustment issues.
- Administrative staff: The health center keeps legal health
records, maintains contact with parents when appropriate, and responds
to urgent situations as they arise.
- Program staff: The health center ensures activities are planned
safely and makes recommendations based on accidents treated. The health
center might also provide first-aid kits specially designed for each
activity with the specific supplies needed per predictable injury for
that area and basic first-aid supplies and problem-solving support through
radio consultation of sick or injured campers for off-camp experiences.
- Kitchen and housekeeping staff: The health center staff works
closely with these individuals to ensure the public health of the camp.
- Camp budget: Providing appropriate medical care is not an inexpensive
endeavor. Though a health center can be run frugally, it is no place
to cut corners.
Properly Positioning and Equipping the
Health Center
When planning the physical placement of the health center,
the first area of concern is location within the general layout of the
camp. A location that is central to the cabins is preferred over one that
borders the camp. This location affords easy access in the middle of the
night if the need arises, especially given the limited outdoor lighting
of most camp settings. Plus, it has the added benefit of an "extra
pairs of eyes" during the daytime for supervision. The facility needs
to be kid friendly and easily accessible, yet at the same time not be
mistaken for anther activity on camp. For many campers, the idea of seeking
out help for their health-related needs is part of the learning experience
of camp.
The health center building
The building needs to have flexible space. Keep in mind that during sick
call as many as 5 to 10 percent of the camp population may be present
for evaluation. The front area of the building requires an open space
that allows for evaluating campers’ illnesses and injuries, a contact
area for parent calls, and a storage area for charts and paperwork. Throughout
the health center, locked storage space that protects supplies and equipment
from the elements and camp critters is well worth the investment.
Space for semi-private outpatient examination and evaluation
areas need to be set aside. The number of outpatient examining areas needed
depends again on your present goals and number of campers. These areas
should allow for evaluation and treatment of the camper and should be
equipped with locked storage if medications are kept in the area. Many
injuries at camp require soaking for cleansing and enhancing the health
process, so you may want to designate an area for foot soaking. Each exam
area should also have access to a sink for hand washing to control the
spread of infection.
Depending on what level of care you are able to provide
on camp, you may need a separate trauma/treatment room. This room would
be set aside for urgent trauma evaluation, extensive ongoing assessment,
suturing, minor surgery, and procedures. It may also double as a satellite
laboratory for basic tests.
The inpatient area is another section that is dependent
on the number of campers and the type of campers you service. Per ACA
standards, approximately one inpatient bed is needed for every fifty people
on camp for a "well" children’s camp. Adequate bathroom and
shower facilities need to support the inpatient area. If you provide inpatient
coverage at your camp, you will also need a kitchen area to feed the campers.
This multipurpose area receives heavy use even if the number of inpatients
is small.
Experience has also shown that the restrooms in the health
center get very heavy use. In particular, "shy" campers seem
to migrate to the seeming privacy of the health center restrooms.
Managing medications
Managing medication effectively and safely requires the health center
to have a secure area where medicines can be stored and locked. This area
will also need a sink and lockable refrigeration dedicated to medications
only. As more children with chronic illnesses are able to enjoy a full
life, they are also able to leave home and participate in a camp experience.
They may bring with them a large compliment of medications. In recent
years, as many as 30 percent of campers have arrived at camp with multi-dose
maintenance medications.
To meet this increase, many camps are moving toward medicating
campers as needed at mealtime in the dining hall where the campers are
a captive audience. Experience has shown that this provides the best compliance
with a medication schedule and is less complicated for the campers. It
also helps separate the correlation of taking a medication and being sick
at camp.
Electrical outlets and equipment
There never seem to be enough electrical outlets in a health center or
adequate lighting. Separate refrigerators need to be maintained for food,
medications, and laboratory needs. Many pieces of basic medical equipment,
such as nebulizers and thermometers, also require electricity and specialty
outlets. Also, if you are moving to upgrade the level of care by including
monitoring equipment, you will need to have a constant source of predictable
electricity with a back-up generator.
There is much discussion of late surrounding the inclusion
of defibrillators in the camp’s health center. As with every new approach
to health care, use of defibrillators would require year-round monitoring
by staff and training in its proper use.
Infectious disease control
A contingency plan needs to be in place in the unlikely chance of an epidemic.
Solutions might include expanding into cabins or general-purpose areas
to isolate sick campers from their healthy cabin mates. An isolation room
with a separate bathroom needs to be available in the event of highly
infectious diseases such as meningitis.
Archival storage
One area that is often overlooked in the health center is a central storage
location for archival of health charts. This requires an easily accessible
space that protects the paperwork from damage and provides availability
if the documents need to be retrieved in the off-season. The legal requirements
differ from state to state as to the actual time that health records must
be kept, but as a general rule, seven years past the age of majority (eighteen)
is thought to be the regulatory requirement.
The Health Center as Part of Camp
Once all the hard work has gone into assessing, setting
goals, collecting data, and formulating a workable plan, it is time to
take a step back and evaluate how the health center is working within
the camp system. Is it providing the expected care? Is complete documentation
of medical care readily available in an easy-to-decipher form? Are preventive
measures reasonable and are they making a difference? Are you able to
keep your contract with parents? And lastly, is the health center a safe,
camper-friendly place that provides the appropriate standard of care while
teaching personal responsibility?
It is a tremendous responsibility to be trusted with
the health care and safety of campers and young staff. The most impressive
physical plant with sophisticated medical equipment has little value if
it doesn’t have a well-trained staff of competent health care providers.
Careful planning around camp goals for health care, the population of
campers, and your contract with parents for health care can result in
a well-balanced health center that is flexible to the camp’s needs, provides
excellent care, teaches responsibility, and adds to the positive camp
experience.
Originally published in the 2001 March/April
issue of Camping Magazine. |
