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Health & Safety Journey

September 30, 2014

The Michigan High school Athletic Association is a bit more than halfway through an eight-year effort to shine the light on, and provide leadership for, four health and safety issues for school sports.
Four and five years ago our health and safety focus was adding more health history to the preparticipation physical examination process and printed forms. With the essential assistance of the Michigan Department of Community Health, this was done, and it earned widespread, positive reaction from Michigan’s diverse medical community.
Two and three years ago our focus was the head; and our early adoption of an all-sports return-to-play protocol after concussion symptoms became a national model.
Last year and this, heat and hydration has been the focus. The MHSAA imposed on its own tournaments, and recommended for member schools’ practices and contests, policies to manage heat and humidity that include a reduction or modification of activities when the heat index reaches a certain level and cessation of all activities when the heat index reaches an even higher level.
Next school year and in 2016-17 the focus will be the fourth “H”: hearts. Tests for heart defects are expensive and results are often misleading, and the triggers of sudden cardiac arrest are unpredictable. Therefore, we will be pointing to the two actions medical authorities appear to agree upon most: (1) the need for planned and practiced emergency procedures, and (2) the need to have AEDs nearby, in good working order.
We urge MHSAA member schools not to wait for the MHSAA focus to make this a local school focus, and we recommend the MI HEARTSafe Schools initiative. See the HeartSafe Action Plan or the HeartSafe School information for details.

Advancing CPR

November 24, 2015

This fall was the first for the requirement that all high school varsity head coaches have current certification in CPR.

If a coach was not CPR certified by the deadline (which was Sept. 17), that coach could not coach at or even be present at the MHSAA tournament where his/her team would be participating.

Only three of the MHSAA’s 750 member high schools failed to comply with that requirement. That’s progress.

But what we also hoped for was that schools which were not already doing so would use this new requirement as a means of providing or requiring CPR certification for assistant and subvarsity coaches as well. And it appears we’ve made some progress on this as well.

Of 640 responses received so far, 80 percent of schools arranged in-person CPR training for all high school varsity head coaches, and 67 percent included assistant and subvarsity coaches in this in-person training.

In the future, the MHSAA Representative Council will be considering refinements of the CPR requirement in order to increase the quantity of certified coaches and improve the quality of programs that are approved to fulfill the requirement. Continuing progress is imperative.