Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Emergency Department Visits Growing More Prevalent

Emergency department (ED) visits have been on an upward trend in the United States. A retrospective analysis of visit data from the National Center for Health Statistics published in Cureus found a consistent increase in overall ED visits among adults within the previous 12 months from 1999 to 2019. The prevalence of ED visits ranged from 17.2% +/- 0.3% in 1999 to 21.7% +/- 0.3% in 2019 with slightly higher visit rates among females than …

CVS Opens New In-Store Oak Street Clinics In Spite of Closure Trends

CVS Health is rolling out a new store structure in several markets that combines Oak Street Health clinics alongside the traditional retail pharmacy. About 2 dozen locations are open or set to open by the end of the year in New York City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio, according to Forbes. CVS acquired Oak Street Health and its 200 clinics—which are largely focused on the Medicare Advantage market—for $10.6 billion in 2023. The …

Google Ends Contract With One Medical For Its Employees

At the end of the year, more than 180,000 Google employees will no longer have the perk of One Medical primary care membership when the contract between Google and Amazon, the clinics’ parent company, ends, according to Healthcare Dive. Whether the action has anything to do with the recent questions about One Medical’s call center triage is anyone’s guess. Google was One Medical’s largest employer client. At one time, some Google offices featured on-site One …

Hybrid UC and ED Model Grows Nationwide

An analysis by the Washington Post and Kaiser Health News examined the recent trend of hospitals launching combined urgent care (UC) centers and emergency departments (EDs). One of the benefits of the hybrid centers is that patients don’t have to self-triage and decide on their own which level of care they need. As it turns out, in the real world of these hybrid centers, many patients can be treated appropriately at the UC level. For …

Too Many Kids With AOM Use Antibiotics For Too Long

A study conducted at 2 pediatric academic healthcare systems resulted in data showing that 75% of antibiotic prescriptions for children with acute otitis media (AOM) were written for durations longer than recommended. As presented in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the researchers focused on 5-day antibiotic prescriptions as the primary outcome and compared them to 7-day and 10-day prescriptions. They also examined treatment failure, recurrence of AOM, hospitalization, and adverse drug events. …

More Antibiotics Used in Virtual UC Compared to In-Person: Study

In a new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, data showed that antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory tract infections (RTIs) were significantly more common in virtual urgent care (UC) settings vs in-person UC settings. Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that 58% of RTI virtual visits resulted in an antibiotic prescription, while only 43% of in-person visits did. Data included 19,003 visits to virtual UC and 69,189 visits to in-person UC from 2018 through 2022. COVID-19 …

Providers Seek Damages, Injunctive Relief For Change Cyberattack

At least 39 healthcare providers and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) are suing UnitedHealth Group over the Change Healthcare hack, claiming they have not financially recovered from the ransomware attack that took place in February. UnitedHealth Group’s CEO in an earnings call said the company was “a little over-optimistic” about how quickly business would return to normal. The company’s IT systems are mostly restored, but the company is still catching up on the claims …

New Blood Test Offers Option For Colorectal Cancer Screening

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved a blood test for colorectal cancer screening in average-risk adults aged 45 and older. Known as Shield, it is the first blood test to receive FDA approval as a primary screening method for colorectal cancer and to qualify for Medicare reimbursement, according to a press release. While the price has not been announced, the test is expected to reach the market within a week. Shield will …

Cannabis Present In Rising Number of Suicide Reports

A study in JAMA Network Open examined the presence of cannabis in suicide cases, as reported to US poison centers from 2009 through 2021. Researchers found intentional, suspected suicidal cannabis exposures increased by approximately 17% annually. According to national data, 18,689 exposures were reported in the time frame, and nearly all (96.5%) cases involved exposure to more than 1 substance in addition to cannabis. Overall, 9.6% of exposures resulted in death or major adverse outcomes, …

Optum Layoffs, Clinic Closures Continue

Optum is closing several urgent care and primary care clinics in multiple states, according to a report in Becker’s. More than 500 clinical and administrative employees will be laid off in California alone, hard on the heels of other recent staff impacts at locations in Colorado and Florida. Parent company UnitedHealth Group attributes the changes to the evolving needs of the business. The report notes that Optum and its subsidiaries had multiple waves of staff …