Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Like PA’s, Urgent Care NP’s Earn Relatively More Than Peers in Other Settings

Not too long ago, we reported that physician assistants practicing in urgent care are among the most well-compensated PAs in the U.S. healthcare workforce. Now, with the release of more data in the 2022 Advanced Practice Provider Compensation and Productivity Survey as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review from SullivanCotter, we can tell you that while nurse practitioners don’t rank quite as high as PAs compared with their peers in other settings (sixth vs third, respectively), …

Warnings of a Seasonal Bump in Respiratory Infections Are Coming to Fruition—with More to Follow

As JUCM News readers know, public health officials and infectious disease specialists warned that holiday gatherings would likely prove to be fertile breeding grounds for COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza. Just a couple of days into the new year, Alabama is the first state to announce that hospitalizations for COVID-19 started climbing shortly after Thanksgiving, to the point that they had essentially doubled (from 264 to 530) by New Year’s Day. Given that the …

North of the Border, Pharmacists Are Creeping Closer to Practicing Medicine

In a development that is sure to have implications in the United States healthcare marketplace, Ontario became the latest province in Canada to allow pharmacists to diagnose and prescribe medication for a finite list of acute ailments. According to a report from the CBC, it’s the second-to-last province to do so, with British Columbia being the only holdout at present. Only a handful of U.S. states have opted to let pharmacists “test and treat” a …

In Buffalo, a Validation of the Business of Urgent Care

When Buffalo Business First scanned the business community to determine its 2022 Business of the Year, they found no entity more deserving than Focus Urgent Care, a four-location operation founded by Greg Daniel, MD, MBA under the umbrella of his own Nidus Development company. It’s an especially striking achievement in that Daniel only opened Focus this past summer, occupying spaces previously run by WNY Immediate Care. Recognizing that certain needs were going unmet in Buffalo …

New Data Present a Different View of How Helpful ARB’s Are—or Aren’t—with COVID

Last spring, published research suggested angiotensin receptor blockers could lower the risk for ventilation and vasopressors in men with COVID-19. Just this week, however, an article released by the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that ARBs do not improve outcomes in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The trial included 787 patients at 17 hospitals in Australia and India and covered the period from May 2020 to November 2021. The vast majority of patients (n=778), …

Be Prepared—Holiday Gatherings Are Likely to Beget a Deluge of Viral Infections (and More)

Health systems expect to see sharp increases in patients presenting with symptoms of multiple respiratory infections in the coming days and weeks. Experts interviewed for a report on CNN suggest that hospitals already straining to keep up with rates of respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 could be hit with a wave of patients newly infected after gathering with family and friends over the winter holidays. Ben Leach, a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia …

Vaccine-Hesitant Urgent Care Workers May Need Proper—and Personal—Motivation

Urgent care operators (and all healthcare employers) may struggle at times to ensure their teams meet organizational goals for vaccination compliance. Even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, some healthcare workers (HCWs) flat out refused to get vaccinated. Besides putting themselves and those around them at risk, such individuals provided a poor example for patients who may have been on the fence about getting the shot. New research published in the Journal of Occupational …

<strong>Storms Are Shutting Down Urgent Care Centers<strong>—</strong>but It Could Be Worse. Would You Be Prepared?</strong>

Storms Are Shutting Down Urgent Care Centers—but It Could Be Worse. Would You Be Prepared?

Catastrophic winter storms are being blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people across the country this week. They’re also leaving many thousands stranded in airports and even more at home without power or heat. Urgent care centers are not exempt for the effects, either, as they’re among the many healthcare facilities forced to shut their doors or alter their operations due to severe conditions. As reported by Fox 17 West Michigan, Spectrum Health has …

There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays—and Spreading Infectious Disease

The good news on the tripledemic front as Christmas and New Year celebrations approach, according to multiple mainstream media and health department sources, is that new cases of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza have probably peaked. The correlating less-rosy news, as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review, is that packing large groups of people into inside spaces over the next week is likely to reverse the trend in pretty short order. The same goes for the …

If Your Business Hasn’t Been Impacted by Rural Hospital Closures, It Most Likely Will

We’ve reported previously on the opportunity that rural hospital closures and cutbacks could present for urgent care operators to step in and thrive in communities in desperate need of healthcare options. New research out of the Penn State College of Medicine paints a broader picture of the potential impact not just for affected communities and prospective new providers, but for what they term “bystander hospitals”—facilities within a 30 mile radius of one that has closed. …