Practice Management
In the May issue of JUCM, Josh Russell wrote in his Letter from the Editor-in-Chief about thinking differently about follow-up. If you are not a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner and decided to skip his letter that month because it seemed too clinical, I urge you to go back and read it. One of the aspects of Urgent Care that separates us from other kinds of healthcare operations—or used to—is the tight collaboration between …
Read More
It’s a weird time right now, isn’t it? On one hand, visit volumes seem to be back to our pre-COVID “norms.” This should be business-as-usual to us, but it feels scary because everyone got used to volumes being so high for so long. On the other hand, everyone is short-staffed, so it’s a good thing we aren’t busier, but being short-staffed is also scary because we feel unprepared for the coming months when volumes go …
Read More
Click Here to download the PDF of The Best Time to Plant a Tree. Urgent Care is definitely ready to start Driving Change again. The pandemic taught us how to be in crisis-response mode all day every day, to roll with wave after wave after wave of external changes, to constantly pivot and adapt, to maintain a furious pace because our communities needed us to. It also diminished opportunities to improve other skills—longer-term thinking, broader-scope …
Read More
“Do you know what the first question anyone gets asked at these things nowadays?” asked a member at a recent industry event. I didn’t know the answer, and when I heard it, I was speechless. He said, “They ask you how many urgent cares you have.” Who are we becoming when this is our measurement of worthiness? When did size become the first thing that matters in our getting to know one another? Can we …
Read MoreThe first time I wrote this column was for the inaugural issue of JUCM in October 2006. Today I could reflect on how much has changed around us, yet how much has stayed the same, but you know…no one really cares about what’s happened since 2006. What we really care about is today, and tomorrow. What’s happening right NOW, and what’s going to happen NEXT. And that’s the inspiration for the 2020 Convention. Yep, I’m …
Read More
Lou Ellen Horwitz, MA Finally, after months of looking for the right health system partner, you have a deal to purchase your clinics. Congratulations! There are many positives in your decision to partner to achieve your vision. And get ready. The next year or so, for yourself and your leadership team, will be extremely exciting, sometimes frustrating, and often a bit terrifying. To help you prepare, we offer some tips for surviving before, during, and …
Read More
URGENT MESSAGE: Over time, urgent care operators become desensitized by what they see and hear every day—a serious challenge to continual improvement and, therefore, success. In this second installment of her guest blog on “blinders,” Lou Ellen Horwitz describes how what is said in an urgent care center influences patient perceptions. She provides practical suggestions on coaching staff to be mindful of their words, volume, and audience when engaging in business and nonbusiness conversation. Lou …
Read More
URGENT MESSAGE: Ongoing success requires that the urgent care operator keep his or her eyes open for opportunities to improve the patient experience. The challenge is that the operator can become desensitized by what he/she sees every day. In this guest blog, Lou Ellen Horwitz explains that effective operators must “take their blinders off” in order to experience the operation the way patients do. Lou Ellen Horwitz is Director of Learning at Seattle-based Immediate Clinic. …
Read More