How Morning Health Checks Including Temperature Readings Reduced Our Illness Rates By As Much As 75% 

By Kimberly Newman @enrollsmart

During one particular year, we had a significant amount of child and staff illness. This was despite following the 3-Step Method (Wash, Rinse, Sanitize) for all of our dishes, sanitizing toys and cots and, washing sheets and blankets, regularly.

This was a very frustrating time and, we decided to do something different to combat our illness rates.  We were already conducting morning health checks when children arrived each day but, we were not taking the children's temperature upon arrival.  

In looking at and tracking the trend of illness that was occurring at our center, we noted that spikes in body temperature usually preceded a child going home sick and then other children and, staff calling out sick.

We decided to add two things to our morning health process that proved highly effective in reducing the illness rates among children and staff at the center:

1)  We added forehead temperature readings and recordings as part of our morning health check and, 

2)  We established a policy that children who became ill must be picked up within an hour of the parent being called, they must have a medical clearance to return to the center and, if a child developed a temperature before 10:00am, they must stay home for 48 hours minimum.

You're probably wondering why the "48-hour rule" was enacted, right? It was enacted because we discovered that some parents were aware that their child was too ill to come to the center that day but had used fever reducer to suppress the child's temperature so as to comply with our daily admission policy.  

We checked each child over at drop off time and, some parents complained about it but, that didn't make a difference to us.  As a result, we were able to reduce the spread of illness by as much as 75%.

Sample Health Check Form





We sanitized our thermometers after each use. Each room was equipped with morning health check forms, forehead thermometers and thermometer sanitizing supplies.


Kimberly Newman is Customer Success Leader at Enrollsmart and she has 15 years of experience owning multiple small and medium-sized childcare centers simultaneously.  

Enrollsmart supplies mobile websites, online child enrollment, childcare search, attendance tracking and childcare staffing technology for small and medium-sized childcare centers.  To learn more about Enrollsmart, visithttps://www.enrollsmart.net/childcare_software/index.html








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