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Nursing Practice > You Asked Us Online
Nursing Standards
Outreach Program
Sabrina's Law
Q
I’m a public health nurse who teaches school principals and teachers how to manage allergic reactions, including how to administer an EpiPen during an anaphylactic reaction. If I teach the principal who then teaches her staff, am I accountable for a negative outcome from a teacher’s error in administering an EpiPen?
A
An Act to Protect Anaphylactic Students, 2005, (Sabrina’s Law) requires public-school staff to learn how to manage life-threatening allergies. It comes into effect on January 1, 2006, and states that public-school boards must:
- provide regular training for staff on dealing with allergies;
- maintain individual files for students with an anaphylaxis allergy;
- identify and communicate emergency procedures for those students; and
- designate storage for emergency EpiPens.
Nurses are accountable for their decision to teach the procedure, the quality of the teaching they provide, determining the competence of the learners at a point in time, and a plan to assess ongoing competence.
Nurses should indicate to the learners whether it is appropriate for them to teach others how to use an EpiPen, and should document this communication in their education plan. If a nurse knows that a principal is planning to teach other staff members, then the nurse would share accountability in the decision to set up a train-the-trainer curriculum. If the nurse feels that a train-thetrainer approach is inappropriate given this type of procedure, then she/he may want to advocate for a more suitable education plan. If the nurse tells the principal that the training program does not qualify her to teach others how to use an EpiPen, then she/he would not be accountable if the principal instructed others in EpiPen use and had no knowledge that the principal would do this.
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