Harris Fleming, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

If You Treat a Lot of Seniors, You May Question Whether the Pandemic Is Really ‘Over’

By most accounts—and lots of data—infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths related to SARS-CoV-2 have declined sufficiently to consider the pandemic over. Zoom in on that big picture, however, and you may find that the older segment of the U.S. population is still struggling with the virus on a grand scale. According to an article published by The New York Times, approximately 90% of January 2023 COVID-related deaths in the United States occurred among patients between …

Counsel, Don’t Routinely Screen Asymptomatic, High-Risk Patients for Genital Herpes

Counseling is more important than routine screening of patients perceived to be at high risk for genital herpes, at least in the absence of symptoms, according to an updated guidance from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. One caveat is that patients known to have genital herpes but who are between outbreaks are not considered to be asymptomatic. The recommendation also does not apply to patients …

Remember the Pandemic Obsession with Hand Hygiene? That Poses Its Own Risks

The potentially lifesaving necessity of maintaining proper hand hygiene was drilled into us ad nauseum over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like all good things, however, overdoing it carries its own hazards. According to new guidance published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, excessive handwashing and even the length of a worker’s fingernails can increase risk for infection in that individual and those they come in contact with. Providers and other patient-facing team members, …

Do You Really Need to Refer that Chest Pain Patient? New Evidence Says, ‘Maybe Not’

There’s a movement afoot in urgent care for providers to practice to the upper limits of their clinical expertise—in other words, to not “degrade” the acuity of care by referring or transferring patients out of convenience or expediency when they really could be treated in the urgent care setting. Even the often-ominous chest pain should be considered a “maybe” rather than an automatic referral, based on the findings of a study conducted in Australia and …

The Pandemic May Be Over, but Long COVID Persists. Can You Spot Those Affected?

While new cases of COVID-19 continue to occur in every part of the United States, infection and mortality rates have fallen far enough for the pandemic to be considered “over” by most public health standards. That doesn’t mean patients and providers should view SARS-CoV-2 as a minor inconvenience, however. According to an article published online by Patient Care, some 36 million Americans have or have had long COVID (for purposes of that article, anyone who …

Physicians Had More COVID Exposure but Lower Mortality —and the Reason May Be Controversial

One of the key messages during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was that an individual’s level of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 had a strong influence on their risk for infection. And while that’s undoubtedly true to some extent—how can you contract a disease you’re not exposed to?—new data suggest that’s an overly simplistic notion. A study published by JAMA Internal Medicine reveals that one of the most-exposed groups in the United States also experienced lower …

Update: Amazon’s Path to Viability in Primary Care Continues to Be a Rough One

As JUCM News readers know, Amazon has been trying for years (and by every method imaginable) to break into the healthcare marketplace, both virtually and in the brick-and-mortar space. Their most recent attempt to offer urgent care- and primary care-like services in person started last August with spending $3.9 billion for 1Life Healthcare, including One Medical’s 125 locations. We still say “attempt” at this point because the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look …

More Healthcare System Hacks Indicate a Need for More Focus on Cybersecurity

At least 17 health systems—many of whom include urgent care operations among their clinical assets—from New Hampshire to Los Angeles are wrestling with the aftermath of a major cyberattack launched the Russian hacker group Killnet, according to the technology company BetterCyber. Both University of Michigan Health and Atrium Health toldBecker’s Hospital Review that patient information and portals were not compromised, but the fact that any breach at all succeeded is cause for concern. This latest …

Retailers Cut Pharmacist Hours While Seeking More Clinical Authority. How Is That Supposed to Work?

Just last week we told you that Montana is the latest U.S. state to consider granting pharmacists more authority to prescribe medications directly to patients in certain circumstances. Physician groups have protested, suggesting that the difference in training pharmacists receive vs what physicians and advanced-practice providers go through makes that prospect a patient-safety issue. There’s another, more basic question, though: How are pharmacists supposed to handle yet another important task when they’re already stretched to …

Provider Burnout Is Worse Than Ever (and We Can’t Pin All the Blame on the Pandemic)

As JUCM and JUCM News readers know, the COVID-19 pandemic ratcheted up already-high risk for burnout among urgent care providers. However, new data published in Medscape’s U.S. Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2023 suggest it would be a mistake to assume that as the burden of SARS-CoV-2 cases continues to wane, so will provider burnout. The report acknowledges that rates of burnout have increased by 26% since 2018, but survey responses indicate that there are …