Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Another Ransomware Attack Has Threatened Healthcare Facilities. Are You Taking Precautions?

A ransomware attack threw CommonSpirit Health hospitals into disarray recently, leaving electronic health record systems useless and wreaking havoc on understaffed emergency rooms, according to a report from Becker’s Health IT. The company said it was working to determine the depth and effect of the attack. There was no word on who was responsible for the attack or what the end objective may be. The best time to assess the level of risk with any …

Cases Are Down, but Pandemic Burnout Continues to Plague Healthcare Providers

There’s been plenty of research into why some patients get over COVID-19 fairly quickly while others struggle for months with postacute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC, more colloquially known as “long COVID”). Now comes word that pandemic-related burnout continues to haunt healthcare providers even as caseloads remain lower than at any other point in years. According to part two (of three) of a survey from The Physician’s Foundation entitled Understanding the State of Physicians’ Wellbeing and …

Here We Go Again: Walmart Tries a More Academic Route into the Healthcare Space

As JUCM News readers are (very well) aware, Walmart has tried multiple times to gain a foothold in the U.S. healthcare marketplace in ways that could conceivably have been competitive with urgent care and existing retail health outlets. First it was with their own retail clinics, then telehealth, and buying existing primary care properties. Now, as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review, the company wants to get into the medical research business. The company said in …

An Urgent Care Center May Be the Answer to One Community’s Healthcare Deficit

An urgent care center may, in effect, be throwing a lifeline to residents in the Ward 8 section of Washington, DC. According to an article published by The Washington Post, people in the area have been living with poor access to healthcare and, consequently, poor health outcomes for too long. So, it was big news when Universal Health Services partnered with George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and GW Medical Faculty Associates …

Car Accident + Payment Policy = a Bad Look for Urgent Care. What Would You Do?

Newspapers and online media outlets across the country picked up on what had been a pretty mundane local story recently, with the net effect being a bad look for urgent care. It all started when a high school junior flipped her car and slammed into a tree while driving along a winding road in Rome, GA. She was unhurt except for a headache, for which her father took her to the closest urgent care center …

With More Patients Leaving the ED Without Being Seen, Urgent Care Has to Keep on Its Game

Last year saw more patients leave emergency rooms without being seen than ever before, according to research published by JAMA Network Open. Per data collected between 2017 and 2021 from between 365 and 1,769 hospital EDs (it varied by year), the rate of patients who left the ED without being seen jumped from 1.1% to 2.1% in the United States. While their destination upon leaving the ED was not part of the study, it’s reasonable …

As Concerns Over Acute Flaccid Myelitis Linger, UCA Invites You to Revisit Essential Information

As JUCM News reported recently, an increase in new cases of severe respiratory illness in children prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Health Advisory Network to issue a bulletin advising U.S. clinicians to be vigilant for signs of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in younger patients. The September announcement noted an increase in illness attributed to both rhinovirus and Enterovirus in children across the country. Some of the Enterovirus patients tested positive for EV-D68, …

CDC Throws Up a Red Flag Over Ebola Concerns

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an Official Health Advisory to urge U.S. clinicians to include Ebola virus disease (EVD) in their differential diagnoses for patients presenting with fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal symptoms, and unexplained bleeding. The advisory also recommends taking a detailed travel history for such patients. There is an active outbreak occurring within five districts in Uganda, but at present there have been …

Kids Can Have Long COVID, too—and It May Not Look the Same as It Does in Adults

Long COVID has been much discussed here and elsewhere—even more so since new acute cases of COVID-19 have slowed—so it’s likely you have a general sense of what to look for in prospective cases. That’s unless the patient is a child, anyway; new information just published in JAMA Pediatrics reveals that, while uncommon in kids, postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) manifests differently in younger patients than it does in adults. The cohort study, reflecting …

Hospitals Nationwide Are Cutting Services—Including in the ED. Where Will Patients Turn?

Urgent care has thrived by proving to be a safe, cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms for nonemergent complaints. In some areas of the U.S., urgent care centers may become more than an “alternative” to care soon, though. Becker’s Hospital Review reports that 17 hospitals from New Jersey to California are cutting back on services that would surely be described as “essential” to many patients. While obstetrics and maternity seem to be the most likely …