Analysis of Demand Changes in a University Counseling Center Telehealth System

The Counseling and Wellness Center (CWC) offers various types of mental health appointments for students at the University of Florida. The CWC is implementing a new walk-in system for student appointments to increase the timeliness and accessibility of first appointments. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CWC shifted to offer telehealth appointments, primarily through Zoom. The research objective is to conduct a data analysis of historical appointment data before the shift to telehealth and after the shift to telehealth to understand how appointment demand changed during the pandemic. The data analysis breaks down the data by appointment type, weekday, and time of day. This project collaborates with staff at the Counseling and Wellness Center and has the goal of helping the CWC better understand demand patterns, so they can better anticipate appointment demand and serve the UF student population in a timely manner.