Running around campus for appointments will soon be a thing of the past.
Student Health Services (SHS) will centralize both its care and location by 2017,when the branches of SHS will come together in the center of campus in a new health center building that will connect to the current Thompson Student Health Center.The groundbreaking is scheduled for this July, according to Marjorie Duffie, SHS public relations and marketing director.
As of now, students' medical care is spread across five different buildings: Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, Blatt Physical Education Center, the Thomson Student Health Center, the Byrnes building and McBryde. The addition of this new health center students will have access to all of the services between there and Thomson.
The Counseling and Human Development Center, currently located in the Byrnes building, will move to the old Thomson Student Health Center to join with psychiatric services.
The on-campus pharmacy, currently located on the third floor of Thomson, will be more “visible and accessible," Duffie said.
Consolidating the sectors of Health Services within a central campus location promotes the patient-centered medical home model, Duffie said.
“It’s something that we implemented last year — early 2014 was when we really started,” she said. “The main thing that some students might know about it is when they come to our health center they are part of a care team.”
This model focuses on collaboration between the different medical branches of Student Health Services and offers students an assigned care team that works together to provide “continuity and collaboration.”
This means when students come into the health center, they'll not only be treated for what they came in for, but also for holistic medical needs by their care teams.
“We’re going to be asking them about these other issues,” she said. “We’re going to be asking them about exercise and sleeping. General questions about their over all health.”
Having all of the services together in one place will allow for students to receive collaborative care from the health care providers at the university in a centralized location between the current Thomson Student Health Center and the Thomas Cooper Library.
The building has 65,000-square-foot floor plan, four-stories and will be styled in colors of “calming blue, green and grey” according to Duffie.
New services will be added to the building, Duffie said, but the details are still hazy.
“A lot can change in the medical world in a year and a half,” she said.