During winter especially, many students want to schedule appointments through Health and Wellness Services, but sometimes it could feel like a roadblock to make the step to call or go into the office. The Winona State University Health & Wellness Center now has the option for students to schedule appointments through an online system. In today’s digital age, many students feel more comfortable and find it more convenient to schedule online.
Lexie Yanta-Green, the Health & Wellness Promotion Coordinator, has found that many students would feel discouraged from seeking an appointment due to the old scheduling options.
“We have received feedback for years that students would prefer an online scheduling option, but we did not have the capabilities to offer online scheduling with our previous electronic health record system,” Yanta-Green said. With the new process, according to Winona State’s website, students can access their health portal through a link on the university’s main webpage, then click on “Appointment Scheduling” and find a time that works for them.
While this new way offers more options, students are still welcome to stick with what they know. “We just added the option of online scheduling to increase accessibility—but if students feel most comfortable continuing to call or walk-in, they are more than welcome to continue,” Yanta-Green said.
This service has been a work-in-progress for some time now. While Health & Wellness Services was aware of the student’s desire for online scheduling, it took them a while to research which program would work best for Winona State, and which was going to be most cost-effective. However, now that they have made their decision, students are already appreciating this new option.
“We have already seen that students are utilizing the online scheduling function and we hope that students feel our services are more accessible to them now…We also are excited that students can now fill out their “paperwork” for us online and their responses are automatically added to their patient profile so our providers can get a better picture of a student’s health more efficiently,” Yanta-Green said.
This new way to schedule appointments is not the only change happening at the Health & Wellness center— according to Yanta-Green, they have “recently partnered with Quest as our reference laboratory to lower lab costs for students. We estimate that lab costs will be approximately 1/6 of the cost compared to the prices students had previously been receiving. We know that medical costs are often unforeseen and therefore not budgeted for, so we are always looking for ways to help students save money.”
With these new aspects of accessibility at Health & Wellness services, Winona State students can feel more comfortable seeking the medical help they need.
