Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

As Temperatures Fall, Weather-Related Presentations to Urgent Care Rise

Much of the northeast corner of the U.S. is expected to plunge into a deep freeze this week, raising the likelihood that your urgent care centers will be seeing cold weather-related injuries. Some can be relatively minor, such as acute back pain in the wake of heavy snow shoveling, but that same activity could spark chest pain, especially in older patients. Then there’s frostbite, hypothermia, and orthopedic presentations related to slipping on slick surfaces outside. …

Amazon May Be Moving One Step Closer to Direct Competition with Urgent Care

We’ve been tracking the confluence of healthcare delivery and private industry, especially among tech companies, for some time now. The latest could be a move that ultimately puts Amazon in direct competition with urgent care centers for some patients. The company has been trying to forge a new link in the healthcare supply chain by getting into the home health test market. Within the past few months, according to CNBC, Amazon was in talks to …

New Data Show Inappropriate Antibiotic Prescriptions Go Well Beyond Urgent Care

Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School say inappropriate use of antibiotics is “still rampant,” with only 12.8% of antibiotic prescriptions in their study being given appropriately. Further, their data show a relatively low 6.7% of those prescriptions originated in urgent care centers, far less than suggested in a JAMA Internal Medicine piece published last October. This latest study, published in The BMJ, reflects insurance claims and shows that antibiotics were most commonly overprescribed …

Another Disease Outbreak Strikes in an Antivaccination ‘Hotspot’

We’ve told you recently about outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease in communities that are loath to line up for immunizations. Unfortunately, that trend is continuing as a rapidly expanding rash of measles cases has moved health officials in Clark County, WA to declare a public health emergency. The first reported case was tracked back to a single person at nearby Portland (OR) International Airport on January 7. Four days later, a second infected person attended a …

Making ‘Nice’ Can Make a Difference in Patient Outcomes

In the information age, images of the kindly, benevolent physician may conjure up quaint memories of Marcus Welby, but an article just published in The New York Times suggests that the simple act of being nice to patients can improve the prospects for positive outcomes. Authored by a pair of social psychologists from Stanford University, the piece maintains that a warm, reassuring approach to patient interactions, especially when discussing their health, can actually help symptoms …

Patients Consider Convenience Before Quality; It’s a Good Thing Urgent Care Offers Both

By now we’ve all gotten the point that patients want excellent care when they need it, which may not be when their primary care provider or a specialist they’d like to see is available. A new study from NRC Health reveals that the convenience factor is actually a higher priority than quality of care when those patients are deciding where to go. The survey included 223,000 healthcare consumers, 51% of whom said convenience and access …

If It Touches Your Patients, Make Sure It’s Clean

When we consider ways in which disease is passed from one person to another, we probably think first about the home, classrooms, offices, or modes of transportation. However, your workplace—the urgent care center—may also be the source sometimes. And the danger isn’t limited to the waiting room. A new study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology notes that stethoscopes can transfer germs from one patient to the next, and suggests that a standardized approach …

Urgent Care Reaches Out to Furloughed Federal Employees

The federal government shutdown is having a very real effect on access to healthcare for many Americans. We told you recently that clinics funded by the Indian Health Service are going without funding, leaving some patients who get their primary care at those facilities out in the cold. On the other side of the coin you’ll see federal workers who aren’t getting paid and may have some tough decisions to make about where their dwindling …

The Data Are in: ED Visits Go Up When Urgent Care Centers Are Closed

Urgent care insiders and advocates have known it intuitively for a long time, but now data are bearing out the fact that urgent care centers really do help thin out the congestion (and associated cost) in emergency rooms—especially in areas where there are multiple locations to choose from. A multistate study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows there’s a 1.4% increase in ED visits by privately insured patients when urgent care centers are …

New York May Call on Telemedicine to Improve Access Under Workers’ Comp

Urgent care operators that offer occupational medicine in New York may want to consider what it would take to start offering telemedicine services if they’re not doing so already. The Empire State is taking a harder look at whether telemedicine could be a viable option to broaden access to clinicians for injured workers who otherwise might not get the care they need. One possible motive for the newfound interest: Industry observers have noted that New …