A patient who’s never visited your urgent care center before presents with acute pain in his right shoulder after an overly aggressive touch football game with some buddies, reliving their glory days on the high school gridiron. It could be a torn rotator cuff—in fact, you’re sure of it, but you really need an ultrasound image to confirm. Scenario 1: You do what you can for the patient’s pain, tell him to take it easy, and refer him to the orthopedist down the block for imaging and the next step in his care. You never see him again. Scenario 2: You assure him that you’ll get a firm diagnosis soon after he has an ultrasound done right in the exam room. He’s grateful that he doesn’t have to run around, getting in and out of his car and struggling to complete yet another registration form in another practice. Satisfied with your thoroughness, he and his family become frequent visitors when the need arises.
Ultrasound is becoming more popular in the urgent care setting, for reasons best illustrated by scenarios like those described above. If you’re concerned about the learning curve, a good first step might be tuning in for the third installment of JUCM’s Innovators in Urgent Care webinar series. Next Thursday, October 4 at 2 pm Eastern, Fabrizia Faustinella, MD, PhD, FACP will explain how offering ultrasound imaging services can bolster your overall clinical care—and keep more patients in-house. Dr. Faustinella is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as an author whose work has been published by JUCM. If you’d like to attend this webinar, visit our registration page. To learn more about the series as a whole, click here. There is no charge to attend the series, which is supported by Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas.