By Sophie Albertie
In the event of an emergency, every second counts.
As mental and physical illness on campus fluctuate during the year, SUNY Plattsburgh’s health center has continued to serve as a sanctuary for students with chronic health issues, battling frat flu or those who are simply just having a bad day. These situations hold their individual importance, but for mental health care, a crisis situation is one that comes on fast and unexpectedly. Usually prompting for a walk-in appointment, where a patient is seen immediately as opposed to being put on hold.
Still, there are questions to be had concerning the feasibility of extending walk-in appointments to all students who want to speak to someone, regardless of the status of their mental health.
Kelsie Welch, Assistant director of Counseling Services, started her position at the start of August this year. She said she finds the increase of walk-in appointments to be valuable, even if the health center is unable to realistically uphold that volume due to how busy this time of year can get.
Over the course of the last two years, the health center has transitioned into a five session model, meaning students who routinely go for counseling get five sessions before being assessed to see if further help is needed. This reduces the likelihood of a waitlist happening.
“Anyone can be experiencing anything at any time, so us branching out and not having walk-in appointments just because of a crisis will change the language and how we support students overall. I think there is significant value in having that, even if our current model doesn’t support that,” Welch said.
Welch said she is looking forward to the new peer counseling program on campus, where students majoring in psychology can prepare for the spring internship where they will be able to exercise their therapy skills even further.
“For me, because I’m new here, I’ve been paying attention to the way the structure has been and working on developing ways to make things a bit more functional,” Welch said.
Deirdre Schaefer is the Assistant director of medical services and has worked at SUNY Plattsburgh for 14 years, but is also new to her position, about one year in. When Schaefer first started at the SUNY Plattsburgh health center, she said they did not offer walk-in appointments.
“The appointments were 100% walk-out, and the main concern with that was the similarity of college student’s schedules. We would see a line of students every day around noon waiting to be seen. We said we were walk-in, but students could be waiting for up to an hour and a half,” Schaefer said.
Since Schaefer’s arrival, the medical center has shifted to same-day appointments, which promises a student that they are getting seen the day they make an appointment, without a guaranteed time frame.
“I would say we run on time 90% of the time. You’re getting seen within 15 minutes. In the past, one of the biggest complaints we got was wait time, so patient satisfaction has definitely been improved,” Schaefer said.
For the future of scheduling, an expanded EMR system is desired. A platform that lets students potentially schedule appointments themselves from the comfort of their own cell phone. For now, Schaefer is focused on making an impact where student health is concerned, to the best of her ability.
Twenty-four seven, unlimited walk-in appointments are not required for students to receive the best medical and counseling care possible, but continuing the conversation of a student-focused system will definitely end up benefiting the school in the long run.
