UCA Joins with ASPR TRACIE to Advance the Role of Urgent Care in COVID-19

Recognizing its own potential to lead urgent care’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic on a national scale, the Urgent Care Association is working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) on its Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (TRACIE) program. UCA leaders met with ASPR TRACIE just a few weeks ago, in advance of a report for the emergency preparedness community about urgent care’s experiences, lessons learned, and how to better work with local medical communities during the coming flu season. Laurel Stoimenoff, executive director of UCA’s Center for Quality and Innovation) and the association’s CEO, Lou Ellen Horwitz, offered both retrospective and prospective takes on urgent care’s potential role. “Operationally, we shared strategies for recovering from the lost business, ensuring a safe environment of care, and applying for the Paycheck Protection Program and other ways the CARES Act can help centers remain open,” Stoimenoff says, while Horwitz suggested that “we still need to increase the state-based awareness of urgent care as an existing and viable opportunity for diagnosis and treatment.” You can read a prerelease version of the report here.