University provides updates on Enriching Campus Wellbeing Initiative

APRIL 14, 2020 — Editor’s note: The following message was sent today via email from Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Kimberly Andrews Espy to all faculty and staff: 

Even as we adjust to virtual instruction and telecommuting, our work to advance our strategic vision continues, as does our core mission of student success. To that end, I write to share updates on our Enriching Campus Wellbeing Initiative. If anything, the numerous challenges of the coronavirus pandemic have amplified the importance of this initiative as well as the need to enhance available health services and support for our Roadrunner community. 

UTSA recently completed a holistic external review of Student Health Services and Counseling & Mental Health Services, conducted by Hodgkins Beckley Consulting, a health care management consulting agency that specializes in higher education. As part of their assessment, consultants identified best practices in comprehensive college health programs, conducted on-campus interviews with multiple stakeholders and benchmarked UTSA’s health care services against nine peer institutions with comparable student enrollments and demographics. 

To no surprise, their review found that UTSA’s campus health care providers and support staff are highly capable professionals who are deeply committed and open to opportunities to better serve our students. There is an opportunity, though, to improve student access and expand scope of services to better deliver the care that UTSA students need. Indeed, the review showed that only 10% of UTSA students accessed Student Health Services in 2018–2019, compared to the peer average of 32%. 

To promote increased utilization and, more importantly, to better provide comprehensive, integrated care to students, UTSA will immediately begin the implementation of a number of the consultants’ recommendations:

• Walk-In Wednesdays have been an important component of CMHS offerings and represent a best practice in mental health care. To capitalize on that opportunity to connect with students at the moment they are seeking help, walk-in hours will be extended to four days a week, Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. After a preliminary period, we will assess utilization to see if different hours may be needed for that service.
  
  
• Similarly, CMHS will phase out its current practice of scheduling and conducting initial evaluations via phone. Instead, staff will be available for walk-in consultations so that students with urgent issues can receive immediate care from trained professionals.
  
  
• To expand access to counseling services CMHS will proceed with plans to hire additional full-time counselors who will be on-board when we return to campus from remote operations and will focus their scope of practice on counseling. The UTSA Psychological Assessment and Consultation Center in the Department of Educational Psychology now will coordinate ADHD and other disability evaluations.
  
  
• Student Health Services will expand its scope of service to treat anxiety, depression and other common behavioral complaints through medical screening, medication, and management and monitoring. SHS and CMHS will work collaboratively to pilot the implementation of these behavioral health services and will work with external primary care providers to develop long-term continuity of care for students who use these services.
  
  
• Finally, Student Health Services will eliminate the $10 copay currently charged to students seeking health services as well as the fee for well-woman visits. This change is effective immediately. Further, SHS is working to decrease its lab testing and other incidental fees. Our intent is to increase student access to SHS by removing any financial barriers. Cost should never prevent our students from receiving needed health care.

To increase awareness of the availability and range of these services, UTSA will develop a communications and marketing plan that not only reaches students but also engages families and faculty/staff to help promote these services to their students. 

It had been our hope to have all these changes fully implemented by the end of the spring 2020 semester. Because UTSA has restricted campus operations in response to the coronavirus pandemic, staff in SHS and CMHS will continue working on these recommendations so that they can be implemented shortly after the university resumes normal operations. Information will be shared as part of regular updates on the Wellbeing Initiative. Other changes are planned for the longer term after fall 2020. Please stay tuned. 

In the meantime, please visit the websites for Student Health Services and Counseling & Mental Health Services to learn how students can utilize their services in a virtual format. 

I am grateful to both Beth Wichman, chief medical officer and executive director of Student Health Services, and Melissa Hernandez, director of Counseling & Mental Health Services, for their longstanding and continued support of UTSA students and for working together to implement these changes. Moving forward, we will regularly assess these services to ensure UTSA is following best practices of comprehensive college health programs for the benefit of our students. 

As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas at wellbeing@utsa.edu.