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Urgent message: Social media strengthens friendships through the sharing of life experiences and common interests, but is it really a good idea for providers or administrators in an urgent care practice to become quite so personal with employees (and vice-versa)? Do you want to be my friend? For children, this is a simple question. Kids are able to form friendships over simple, common bonds, like a shared love of the playground slide or an animated …

Urgent message: After an urgent care center spends thousands of dollars on marketing and advertising to raise awareness, it should be fully prepared to “welcome” patients whose first interaction with the practice is often by telephone. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. As a volume-driven practice model, urgent care must utilize a number of expensive marketing …

Urgent message: Medications can heal, but they can also be deadly. That’s why protocols and controls, supported by rigorous and frequent documentation, are needed to reduce the possibility of medication errors in the urgent care setting. The most recent 10-year study on medical errors by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (sponsored by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) found that medication errors are by far the most common medical errors, harming …