Keeping Columbia Healthy

Managing the health and well-being of a student population comprised of over 30,000 diverse individuals is an enormous task. As a growing student population and an increased national focus on health issues requires universities to implement enhanced services, the demands of a university health services office are greater and more complex than ever before. In FY15 Columbia Health improved services and offerings to reflect the ever-evolving needs of the University community.

Modern Facilities, Enhanced Services

The final phase of renovations for the primary care offices of Medical Services in John Jay Hall was completed in FY15, allowing all patient services, including routine and urgent care, to be conveniently located together on the 4th floor. This change allowed Health Promotion, Student Health Insurance, and Immunization Compliance to move to the third floor of John Jay, creating a more seamless student experience. Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS) also began the process of expanding its operations to the 5th floor of Lerner Hall in order to make better use of space serving student needs.

In addition to physical improvements, a number of enhancements were made to the depth and breadth of the services provided by Health this fiscal year. In CPS, the addition of group therapy options including trauma, multicultural concerns, religious/spiritual, and LGBTQ responded to student requests for an expansion of targeted services and complement existing robust and well-attended offerings. Health also implemented new after-hours phone triage services for Medical Services and CPS to better expand its after-hours services, regardless of the support a caller needs. The CPS hotline now connects callers to a licensed mental health professional who can assist the caller with making a plan and suggest coping mechanisms until the CPS office reopens.

A More Comprehensive Sexual Violence Response

FY15 was filled with a multitude of expansions for the Sexual Violence Response team, including the addition of six new staff members and the opening of two additional Sexual Violence Response and Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Centers in Lerner Hall and Bard Hall. These newly constructed spaces on the Morningside and Medical campuses, respectively, join the existing Hewitt Hall location at Barnard in providing trauma-informed, confidential support through crisis counseling/intervention, advocacy, prevention, and outreach.

The Step UP! Bystander Awareness and Intervention skills initiative was introduced and incorporated as part of the New Student Orientation Program that occurs just before the start of every academic year. Incoming students were trained in pro-social bystander intervention techniques and provided with safe, effective ways to intervene in situations of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and harassment.

Every October, during Relationship Violence Awareness Month (RVAM), Sexual Violence Response recognizes issues of violence in intimate relationships through a variety of events and programming. Purple is the symbolic color for RVAM, and in FY2015 Columbia began the tradition of lighting Lerner Hall in purple lights for the entire month to support the prevention and intervention of relationship violence.

Unified Insurance

Another major initiative that was realized in FY15 was the unification of the Student Health Insurance Plan across the Morningside and Medical campuses, a nearly two-year effort that began with aligning benefits in the first year and then merging administrative and contractual elements in the second.

“This unification means that there is one contract and one plan offered to all students of the University, regardless of the campus,” said Michael McNeil, Executive Director of Alice! Health Promotion, Student Health Insurance and Immunization Compliance. “Now for students, especially those in dual degree programs, there are no longer any differences in plans or benefits.”

Additionally, three affiliate schools, Teachers College, Jewish Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary, are included in this master agreement.

Those students who participate in the University student insurance plan can now take advantage of the unified benefit structure, as well as expanded benefits offered to eligible dependents of enrolled students. The merger has also resulted in a number of increased administrative efficiencies that have further led to cost savings for enrolled students. “Despite health care costs trending up, we have been able to maintain lower than trend cost increases, through careful plan design as well as the unification process.  Simplifying the administration of the plan alone prevented some of the potential premium increase,” said McNeil.