Keeping students healthy

Accreditation continues center’s commitment to quality

By April Frawley Birdwell

The UF Student Health Care Center has earned continued accreditation from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, a designation that highlights the center’s commitment to high standards and quality health care for UF students.

“We are among an increasing percentage of student health care centers that are accredited,” said Phillip Barkley, M.D., director of the UF Student Health Care Center. “This assures our patients, their parents, the faculty and staff, and the university community that we have followed a set of standards and have met those standards. We take quality and patient care very seriously and want to do our job in the most excellent way possible.”

The Student Health Care Center received a three-year accreditation from the association, and is one of only 400 student health centers that has received this designation from the agency.

As a student health care center, the UF SHCC is not required to seek accreditation, but has been accredited since the 1980s. Barkley says accreditation helps the center measure itself against the best health care institutions in the country.

“It sets in motion for us to be a continually learning organization, a continually improving organization,” he said. “I am just really proud of our organization and proud of the people who work at Student Health. They are all committed to excellence in student health care.”

Founded in 1906, the Student Health Care Center has evolved into an outpatient clinic, complete with primary care, dermatology, women’s health, nutrition services, psychiatry services, massage therapy, physical therapy and sports medicine.