Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

The Top 10 Mistakes Hospitals Make in the Urgent Care Business

Introduction It should not be surprising that when hospital executives and personnel sit down to discuss issues and problems around population health, accountable care organization (ACO) integration, network development, cost containment, new product lines, hospital readmission rates, care coordination, and related topics they often arrive at hospital-centric and hospital-based solutions to solve them.1 As hospitals and hospital networks look to urgent care centers to address some of these issues through hospital/urgent care affiliations, joint ventures, …

Management of Palpitations in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Patients with palpitations often present to urgent care clinics. Making the correct diagnosis requires knowledge of underlying pathophysiology and thorough differential diagnosis. EBRAHIM BARKOUDAH, MD, and JEFFREY P. COLLINS, MD Case Record A 75-year-old woman with no prior history of cardiac disease complained of “palpitations” but neither lightheadedness nor syncope. She denied excess caffeine intake or use of illicit drugs and had no other significant past medical history on triage. The patient’s initial …

Diabetic Emergencies in the Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: Patients with glucose levels either too high or too low often require immediate, potentially life-saving interventions in the urgent care setting. These patients are often found to be diabetic. Allan F. Moore, MD, Nicolas Abourizk, MD, Jeffrey Collins, MD, MA Diabetes is a common chronic disease affecting approximately 7% of the United States population. Of these individuals, 17.5 million carry a diagnosis of diabetes and over 6 million are undiagnosed. An estimated 54 …