By C. Mae Waugh
After six months in the position, University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS) Executive Director Madeleine Estabrook is in the midst of restructuring the office to include more staff accessibility and new technology.
By winter break, sick students should be able to make appointments from their computers, Estabrook said. The ability to make online appointments is one example of the director’s new plans.
“We want to focus on access, providing quality care and creating a continuum of care,” Estabrook said.
Another plan refers students to specialists outside UHCS. The plan, which was implemented at the end of last year, entails collecting student feedback on specialists to evaluate their experience.
“We’ve gotten some feedback, but not as much as I’d like,” Estabrook said.
Senior Vice President for Enrollment and Student Life Philomena Mantella said Estabrook has been valuable to UHCS.
“Madeleine’s dedicated leadership of UHCS has been essential to continuously improving the services offered to students,” she said in a statement to The News. “She has worked to expand the UHCS systems and procedures while strengthening the staff’s development and reinforcing organizational growth.”
The position had been left vacant last year after former director Roberta Berrien, who had been there for about two and a half years, announced her resignation last fall, according to a March 10 Northeastern News article. Berrien’s term as executive director, which in the article Mantella called “controversial,” saw 23 employees of the center resign, many citing poor employee-management relations with Berrien.
Estabrook is working to build a more stable workforce, and under her management, five former employees who left during the term of Berrien have returned. Two were physicians.
“I see that as a success – that our workforce wants to stay here,” Estabrook said.
Other plans for improvements include an electronic means for surveys, which UHCS plans to launch after the holidays, Estabrook said.
Before coming to Northeastern, Estabrook practiced health care law and advised health care providers at Boston law firm Edwards Angell Palmer ‘ Dodge. The biggest transition was from many clients to one, she said.
“It allows me to focus and plan for just one client,” Estabrook said. “It’s a different type of challenge.”
Estabrook said she has not had enough time to see if any of the proposed changes are working.
“We are still trying to implement new things,” she said. “Each try teaches us more about what the best solution might be.”
The management of UHCS is continually creating solutions to the problems it faces, Estabrook said.
Due to UHCS’s recent change in electronic medical systems, Estabrook has no report on any actual increases or decreases in students’ satisfaction or retention.
“I haven’t seen the data change yet, but I can tell you October has been very busy with cold and flu,” she
Some students said UHCS meets their needs, while others said it leaves them unsatisfied.
“I was going to go last week but everybody told me they wouldn’t do anything for me and it would be a waste of time,” said Megan McCormick, senior English major.
Most students waiting to see doctors Monday afternoon were on their second visit.
“At UHCS you have to go lots of times to get good health,” said Christina Lavorna, a junior psychology major.
With student feedback, Estabrook hopes to lead the UHCS to improve.
“It is a challenge I want to see through,” she said. “I want to make UHCS as high quality as possible and make it the important and integral part of university life that it should be.”
