The flu Point of Dispensing is returning to Ithaca College after two years and will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 15 in Emerson Suites. This year, individuals who wish to be inoculated will have to present their insurance cards, a requirement that did not exist when the flu POD was last organized in Fall 2022.
Mary Bentley, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, is the operations director on the committee that organized the flu POD. Bentley said the flu POD stopped being on campus for the 2022–23 and 2023–24 academic years.
In Fall 2022, the college became a part of Cayuga Health System’s network. With this change, students were required to use their insurance cards and pay a co-pay to use services within the Hammond Health Center. Bentley said she hopes that the additional step of presenting an insurance card does not deter people from getting a flu shot.
“We’re trying it to see if [the flu POD] works … with this particular configuration,” Bentley said. “It’s a different animal now because you have to bring your insurance card … and that’s really a big barrier, even though it’s a five-minute thing.”
Jennifer Metzgar, director of Student Health Services for Cayuga Health at Ithaca College, said the POD stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Metzgar said most people should smoothly be able to get the flu shot through their insurance plans and any potential issues with getting inoculated will differ case by case.
“There may be the person whose insurance coverage dropped and they didn’t know it or they hadn’t thought about it,” Metzgar said. “So there could be those types of situations that may pop up, but it should be few and far between.”
Students, faculty and staff who are enrolled through Aetna, the college-sponsored health insurance plan, will receive full coverage for their flu shots upon presenting their insurance card. Most insurance plans cover the cost of flu shots. Bentley said the college has procured 600 flu shots and discourages walk-ins because flu shots will be reserved only for those who have registered online. People can register online until all slots are filled.
Metzgar said the college covered the costs of the flu shots, which were procured by Cayuga Health.
Bentley said students taking the Community Health course with her have been creating awareness about the flu POD through a mass media campaign, which involves creating posters. Since 2013, the POD has involved students in organization and planning. In 2019, the Tompkins County Health Department was awarded for its partnership with the college for involving students.
While students in the course are not qualified to administer the flu shots, they will be certified as Medical Reserve Corps volunteers in Central New York and are involved in planning the clinic.
The Medical Reserve Corps is a group of professionally certified volunteers who engage in public health emergency programming, like vaccination drives. Bobbi Alcock, coordinator for the CNY Medical Reserve Corps, said that being a certified volunteer can be beneficial for students and can also serve local communities.
“[Students] come out with a greater sense of what they can be doing in their community [and] that they can make impacts within whatever community that they end up in as a professional,” Alcock said. “So if students were to go home or to go to other states, other communities, most likely, there’s a Medical Reserve Corps unit that is nearby and they will be able to come into that as a volunteer with experience.”
Bentley said the flu POD serves as a unique opportunity for students to observe best practices for emergency preparedness and management.
“We’re really trying to maintain this as an academic experience,” Bentley said. “We don’t want to give this up because our health center changed. We’re going to try to work … inside of the conditions that are present now … and still allow our public and community health students to have this experience.”
Senior Kristen Brodie is a public and community health major taking the Community Health class said she was excited about being a part of the mass media campaign.
“This is my first time doing it,” Brodie said. “I think it will be a good turnout … because that’s kind of what we’ve been working on. And then if there isn’t then there are always things to learn for the next year.”
Brodie said it is important to administer flu shots in an accessible manner, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation since then.
Bentley said students’ involvement with the campus-wide campaign and planning the flu POD serves a dual purpose.
“They’re involved in a mass media campaign to try to address vaccine hesitancy, which is huge right now,” Bentley said. “What we’re trying to do is address that directly as public health professionals and they’re also getting the experience of organizing and running a mass inoculation.”
Some students will also be administering an optional mental health screening that is being held at the same time. Bentley said the timing of the flu POD is crucial for students and the people they interact with when they are away from campus.
“We don’t want the perfect storm on our campus,” Bentley said. “We want to make sure that we can get as many people immunized for the flu before they go home for fall break. It takes a little while to get the immunity, but the immunity is fairly quick in a young person.”
Alcock said that even when the college was not organizing the on-campus flu POD, some Ithaca College students independently coordinated with her and chose to observe the PODs being organized in Onondaga County.
At Cornell University, flu shots are provided through Wegmans. Alcock said she has worked with Syracuse University and Le Moyne College, where flu shots are also outsourced but there is no student involvement. Alcock said this is what helps Ithaca College stand out in the public health sector.
“[Other colleges] don’t teach the students to do this,” Alcock said. “I’ve been trying to convince them to because they have the programs that would allow it to be a good thing. I think Ithaca College is ahead of the game with this.”
