StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Abstracts in Urgent Care: March, 2016

SEAN M. McNEELEY, MD Inhaled Steroids Do Not Reduce Growth in Children with Asthma Key point: Inhaled steroids did not reduce growth velocity in a 1-year study. Citation: Wardenier NR, Klok T, de Groot EP, Brand PL. Height growth in children with asthma treated with guidelinerecommended dosages of fluticasone and electronically assessed adherence. Arch Dis Child. 2015 December 7. doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2015-309654. Adherence to therapy is important for children with asthma. Many factors, including fear of …

Turning Over Patient Records on Request

Urgent message: Urgent care providers subject to the privacy regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 need compliant procedures for handling patient requests for medical records, including transfer of patient records to other providers. U.S. federal and state laws require providers to allow patients access to their medical records. This includes records supplied by another provider (e.g., a specialist who has forwarded a report to the primary-care physician) that may be …

Sore Wrists with Soft-Tissue Hypertonicity and Swelling

Urgent message: It is important for urgent care providers to be able to recognize the lesser-known arthritides as causes of acute joint pain and to recognize their specific manifestations on x-rays. Further work-up is warranted because some of these diseases can be associated with various metabolic disorders. MAY MOHTY, MD, FAAP, FAAUCM, and HAMILTON WHITE, MS4 Introduction The deposition of calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate crystals in and around joints is called CPPD (calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate deposition) disease. This condition manifests in a variety …

Zika Virus—Near Pandemic Proportions?

Urgent message: The clinical manifestations of Zika virus infection are generally mild in adults; the primary concern is the potential link to microcephaly in children of infected pregnant women. There is no cure, so prevention is paramount. MIZUHO SPANGLER, DO, and MICHAEL B. WEINSTOCK, MD Introduction The Zika virus epidemic is gaining a lot of media attention, deservedly so; there have been large outbreaks of infection in Brazil, South America, and the Caribbean, with numbers …

We’re All in This Together: Four Attributes of Effective Medical Center Teams

Urgent message: Creating and cultivating cohesive, goal-oriented, and patient-focused urgent care teams starts with visible front-line leaders who emphasize a strong service culture, open communication, personal accountability, and management transparency. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Practice Velocity Introduction The stress, resentment, and dissatisfaction that one experiences being part of a disconnected and ineffective team are not easily forgotten. Common sense may lead one to believe that the safest path is to ignore the team’s dysfunction and consider it just a part of …

Evaluation and Management of Ankle Injuries in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Acute ankle injuries can progress to chronic issues. It is essential that the urgent care clinician be aware of the mechanisms of common ankle injuries, their pathophysiology, essential diagnostic tests, and which injuries require transfer for a higher level of care. LISA SCHUERMAN, RN, MSN, APNP Introduction The ankle is one of the most common sites for acute musculoskeletal injuries, with sprains accounting for 75% of ankle injuries. The ankle joint is composed of the tibia, fibula, and talus. …

Analytics and Performance Metrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It seems like metrics and analytics are the buzzwords to watch in 2016. Everyone— from health-care administrators to carwash operators—is looking for ways to measure best practices, key business drivers, and employee performance to stand out. Even my beloved Cleveland Browns became the first team in professional football to hire a chief strategy officer to apply analytics in picking players who give the team its best chance of winning. Health care itself is into analytics, …

Study: ACA Fails to Slow ED Visits, But Urgent Care Use Also On the Rise

One of the selling points of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) was that it would save health dollars by diverting newly insured patients away from the emergency room toward primary care physicians. Instead, ED use has continued to grow. The issue, according to Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard’s School of Public Health, is the same as it’s always been, regardless of an individual’s insurance status: …

Legacy Continues Aggressive Growth in Northwest

Just weeks after its partner company GoHealth announced plans to break into the San Francisco-area market, Legacy Health is spreading its own wings closer to its home. The company opens its 12th location in the Portland, OR area this week under the Legacy-GoHealth Urgent Care name. If all goes according to plan, the company will keep growing and operate 20 urgent care centers in the Portland area by the end of 2016.

Update: CDC Says New Zika Cases Could Have Been Sexually Transmitted

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and certain state health departments are looking into 14 new cases of Zika virus to determine if they could have been transmitted through sexual contact. In each case, a man who had traveled to an area where Zika has been confirmed developed symptoms within two weeks of his female sexual partner becoming ill. While the main health concern is that several of the women are pregnant and Zika …