StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Roundtable: Expert Perspectives on X-Ray Over- Read Strategies in Urgent Care

Urgent message: To ensure a high quality of patient care and reduce the risk of medical errors while also controlling administrative overhead, every urgent care center should have a clear policy and process for radiologist interpretation of x-ray images, image over-read, or both. IntroductionAs health-care costs continue to multiply, it is important to consider money-saving measures across the board. Radiography is an essential service in differentiating urgent care centers from primary care and other providers, …

Evaluation of Scrotal Pain in the Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: Evaluating patients with acute scrotal pain can be a challenge for clinicians in the outpatient setting because several conditions indicated by it can cause significant morbidity. Performing a thorough but focused medical history and physical examination and considering certain diagnoses, including testicular torsion, epididymitis, and prostatitis, are imperative when assessing these patients. JEREMY HAWKINS, MD, BRIT LONG, MD, and ALEX KOYFMAN, MD, FAAEM Introduction Evaluation of acute scrotal pain is often challenging for clinicians …

April 2016

In New York, No More ‘Writing’ Prescriptions

Use a prescription pad in New York, go to jail—potentially, anyway, as the state becomes only the second state to require electronic prescribing and the first to establish penalties, which include fines, loss of license, and even jail time, for noncompliance. Paper and telephone prescriptions will be exempted for emergency situations, however. Proponents reason that e-prescribing is a big step toward eliminating prescribing errors and long wait times at the pharmacy, and that it reduces …

FDA Wants Some Gloves to Take a Powder

The Food and Drug Administration wants to ban most powdered gloves from exam rooms, as well as operating rooms. The ban would apply to powdered surgeon’s gloves, powdered patient examination gloves, and absorbable powder for lubricating a surgeon’s glove. The FDA says the risk that synthetic proteins in the gloves can cause airway inflammation, wound inflammation, and postprocedure adhesions is too great to allow their continued use. If finalized, the ban would force withdrawal of …

Data Show More Institutions Getting into the Urgent Care Market

Hospital chains and insurance companies continue to invest in urgent care centers at an ever-increasing pace, while also forging partnerships with independently owned clinics, according to a report from Merchant Medicine. The perception is that as Americans live to an older age—and stay active longer while doing it—they want more convenient care for nonemergent injuries while maintaining a relationship with institutions they’ve come to trust. Current data from the Urgent Care Association (UCA) show that …

Difficult Patients May Be More Difficult to Diagnose

As the difficulty in dealing with a patient goes up, diagnostic accuracy goes down, according to a new report published in BMJ Quality and Safety. The complexity of the ultimate diagnosis and the amount of time spent with the patient appear to have no bearing on the probability of making a correct diagnosis. The article is based on two studies in the Netherlands that showed physicians were more likely to misdiagnose patients who exhibited “disruptive …

Tab for ‘Affordable’ Care Act Jumps $136 Billion

Six years after its inception, government forecasts concerning the cost of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) continue to climb. Now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the bill over the next decade will be approximately 11% higher than predicted just a year ago—that’s an extra $136 billion, for a total of $1.34 trillion over that time. The CBO chalks the greater cost up to higher-than-expected enrollment in the expanded Medicaid program established by …

CDC Quantifies Advice on Sex, Conception in the Time of Zika

Just a week after issuing its previous advisory, the Centers for Disease Control is already refining recommended precautions men and women need to take before engaging in sexual contact or attempting to conceive. Men with potential exposure (ie, travel or residence in an active outbreak area) should not engage in unprotected sex for at least 8 weeks after the exposure ends. Advice to use condoms or abstain from sex also applies to currently pregnant women …

Next Round of HIPAA Audits Aim to Prevent Data Breaches

Electronic health records have fostered easier access to vital information—clearly a benefit to providers and patients—but they’ve also been the font of data breaches involving the records of nearly 33 million individuals since 2009. Part of the problem lies with dishonest or inept contractors (or “business associates”) that may not have the expertise to construct proper security measures. Now those business associates are going to be targeted for HIPAA audits by the Department of Health …