UHS Starts Online Evaluation Services

Next time University Health Services (UHS) suggests a Band-Aid as a cold remedy, students may have the chance to hold Harvard College’s health care provider more accountable.

UHS, in collaboration with the Undergraduate Council, announced Wednesday that students will be able to fill out online evaluations of services they receive at UHS beginning this fall.

During Mental Health Week, which kicked off Feb. 23, the UC passed legislation recommending that the College-UHS Advisory Committee create a survey to solicit feedback on UHS visits on a periodic basis.

Susan I. Putnins ’08, a student representative to the advisory committee, said she hoped moving the evaluation online would encourage more students to respond.

“We talk a lot amongst ourselves about our complaints with UHS,” Putnins said, “but we don’t really tell UHS what they could do better.”

Paul Barreira, director of behavioral health and academic counseling at UHS, said that at designated times during the year, surveys would be e-mailed to a sample of students who had just received care from UHS.

Barreira, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry, said the survey would include both general questions covering issues like wait time and satisfaction with a visit and department-specific questions. He also said that giving students the option to fill the evaluation out several days after a visit would provide time for reflection.

“The hope is that you’ll get more reliable feedback,” Barreira said, adding that UHS would compare surveys across time to see if there were satisfaction trends by season. Health services at other schools, like the University of Pennsylvania, also use electronic surveys to gather student feedback.

UC representative Tamar Holoshitz ’10, who organized Mental Health Week and is also a student representative to the College-UHS Advisory Committee, said she hopes the survey would identify key issues for UHS and improve individual health care experiences by fostering more communication between health services and students.

Currently, UHS gets student feedback from a patient advocate and paper surveys in their offices. There is also a function on the UHS Web site that allows students to enter comments for the patient advocate electronically.

Barreira said that the preexisting feedback mechanisms would remain in place along with the survey.

“This doesn’t preclude students calling at any time for any reason,” Barreira said, “I don’t want to give the impression that we’re doing away with our patient advocacy.”

—Staff writer Chelsea L. Shover can be reached at clshover@fas.harvard.edu.l