Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

A Novel Type of ‘Specialty’ Urgent Care Centers Puts Out the Welcome Mat for Addicts

Urgent care centers devoted to pediatrics and women’s health are growing in number and appeal around the country. Now an urgent care operator in Boston is trying another niche service using the urgent care model: care for patients addicted to opioids. Working in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (which provided a $2.9 million grant) and the Boston Public Health Commission, the Boston Medical Center Opioid Urgent Care Center promises to do an …

Patients Are Considering Whether They Really Need to Visit a Healthcare Facility; Could This Be Telemedicine’s Moment?

It’s typical at some point during the flu season for hospitals to re-emphasize that patients should consider going to an urgent care center if they have symptoms of influenza, reserving the ED for truly emergent cases. The COVID-19 pandemic is taking that dynamic to a whole new level, as urgent care centers themselves are wrestling with ways to provide care without inviting in highly contagious people. This begs the question, is this crisis telemedicine’s time …

Social Distancing Could Spark Psychological Crises—Be Ready to Assess and Refer

Some among the public may view the term social distancing as being sentenced to boredom for an indefinite period, regardless of the intended result of mitigating the spread of COVID-19. Others might welcome it as an opportunity for solitude or spending time with their nuclear family. For a few of your patients and prospective patients, though, the thought of being more or less housebound with minimal contact with the outside world could bring about acute …

With Fewer Opioids Being Prescribed in the ED, Will Urgent Care See More Drug Seekers?

Recommendations to carefully consider which patients truly need opioid pain medications are having their intended effect in emergency rooms across the U.S. According to new data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a downward trend in patients receiving a prescription for opioids when they check out of the ED is ongoing. (In the period of 2010–2011, 21.5% of patients left the ED with a prescription for opioids; in the 2016–2017 study …

COVID-19 Update: CDC Issues Interim Prevention and Control Measures

With the COVID-19 situation changing by the minute—literally, at times—urgent care providers may feel swamped with competing demands for testing, treatment, and reassuring patients who really don’t have any related worries. Add to that the fact that there’s been little definitive direction from federal health agencies on how to treat patients who do have COVID-19. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a directive that could be helpful—both for patient care and …

Enlisting Telehealth May Help Patients Concerned About COVID-19 While Protecting the Public—and Your Team

With public fears over COVID-19 at a high pitch, emergency rooms and urgent care centers are being taxed to keep up with demand for immediate attention and care. They’re also learning on the fly how to mitigate risk for infecting other patients, and the staff themselves. Most patients have nothing to worry about, but those who might actually be infected run the risk of infecting others if the right procedures aren’t followed once those patients …

When Patients Describe What Sounds Like AFib, Ask Them About Their Drinking Habits

Patients experiencing atrial fibrillation for the first time sometimes mistake their symptoms for a heart attack and call 911 or rush off to the emergency room. Once they’ve gone through it a few times, and understand that AFib is not high-risk in the short term, they tend to take a more relaxed approach. Some simply call their cardiologist or electrophysiologist so they can track the event. Others may be inclined to visit an urgent care …

Virginia Lawmakers OK Ambulance Transport Directly to Urgent Care—but There’s a Catch

The state legislature in Virginia just passed a bill that enables ambulances to transport patients directly to 24-hour urgent care centers and other nonhospital healthcare facilities when clinically appropriate. While clearly that indicates recognition that urgent care centers offer care on par with the ED, short of life- or limb-threatening emergencies, the interesting thing is that only one urgent care operator, Kaiser Permanents, runs facilities that are open 24 hours a day in the Commonwealth. …

Penn State Seeks Urgent Care Input on Pediatric Care

Regular readers of JUCM and JUCM News know pediatric urgent care is a growing segment of our industry. However, as has been the case with urgent care in general historically, data on practice norms are scarce. Penn State University is working to help remedy that by conducting a survey about urgent care centers’ capability to treat children. Questions seek information on availability of nearby emergency room and children’s hospital care, the level of training in …

Beware One Secondary Concern Regarding COVID-19: Drug Shortages

COVID-19 is capturing the public’s attention more than any other health crisis right now. The concern, warranted or not, is that a worldwide pandemic will prove more deadly than any other outbreak in recent history. A more immediate, albeit secondary concern, as noted in an article just published online by Forbes, is that a variety of factors could conspire to create dangerous drug shortages. According to the Food and Drug Administration, one medication is already …