Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Patient Records Have Been Taken Hostage at a Texas Hospital. Ensure Your System Is Secure

OakBend Medical Center in Richmond, TX is scrambling to deal with a ransomware attack by a group calling itself Daixin Team. As reported by the online tech news publication The Register, the attack initially shut down the hospital’s communication and IT systems and “stole” more than 1 million patient records. It’s unclear what the group’s demands or intentions are, though they’ve threatened to release a “full leak” of the data. The threat of cyber crime …

As the COVID-19 Pandemic Continues to Fade, Are We About to Face Another?

JUCM and JUCM News readers are well aware that the United States has seen a steady increase in the occurrence of sexually transmitted disease for years now. Unfortunately, it appears that the trend will continue for the foreseeable future, leading at least one physician to express concern that we’re in the midst of “pandemic venereal disease.” This is backed up by fresh data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing increases in gonorrhea, …

The Ongoing Bleak Outlook for Rural Hospitals Could Hold Promise for Urgent Care

An already-dire situation for the rural hospital market is getting tougher by the month as costs across the board to continue rise. As noted in an article published by Healthcare Dive, labor, medications, and everyday supplies keep going up while patient volume and reimbursements are stagnant or even falling in some areas. It’s gotten so bad that the American Hospital Association is expressing concern that access to care could become a major challenge—which could point …

Free Webinar: Prepare for More ‘Typical’ Urgent Care Presentations—Including Lacerations

COVID-19 has taken up a disproportionate amount of time in the context of what we consider “typical” urgent care presentation. Now that we’re moving steadily (if slowly) to what used to be normal, you can expect patients to present more often with concerns for minor illness and injuries from sprains to lacerations. The latter, in particular, requires a certain level of skill and familiarity to optimize the chance for positive outcomes. JUCM will host a …

Provider Burnout Grew as the Pandemic Dragged On. What Do We Do About It?

A survey of physicians published by Mayo Clinic Proceedings found a “dramatic” increase in burnout coinciding with lower satisfaction scores on work–life integration (WLI) 21 months into the COVID-19 pandemic compared with earlier periods. By 2021, 62.8% of physicians who participated admitted to at least one manifestation of burnout, compared with 38.2% in 2020. WLI fell from 46.1% in 2020 to 30.2% in 2021. Emotional exhaustion scores tracked along with those findings, increasing from a …

Are Children Safe from Sexual Predators in Your Urgent Care Center?

Public service initiatives have done a thorough job of introducing children and the general public to “stranger danger.” However, there is no corresponding widespread campaign for adults who are legally bound to report viable concerns that a child could be a victim of sexual abuse (ie, mandatory reporters), including educators, clergy, healthcare professionals, and others. Rather, it’s up to those various disciplines to ensure their cohorts understand how to recognize red flags—including warning signs that …

Ensure You Can Justify Every Prescription, or Face the Consequences

An osteopathic physician in Illinois was just sentenced to 1 year in prison for writing alprazolam prescriptions for patients for nontherapeutic use. According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, he 1) didn’t examine the six patients he was prescribing for, 2) knew there was no medical need for the drugs, and 3) had knowledge that the drugs would be sold or abused. Not surprisingly, it was also shown that …

APPs Are Moving to Capitalize on Gains Made During the Pandemic as Their Numbers Grow

In the all-hands-on-deck peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many states cleared the way for physician assistants to take on more authority—temporarily, in order to get through the crisis. Now that things have smoothed out a bit (at least for now), PAs are pushing for at least some of those relaxed limitations to become permanent, according to an article published by Becker’s Hospital Review. The article goes on to point out that some physician groups, including …

We’ve Been Prepping for—and Fearing—a Twindemic for Years. Could Its Time Have Arrived?

Public health advocates have been warning since year 1 of the pandemic that a simultaneous wave of influenza and COVID-19 could have devastating consequences to the U.S. population, healthcare system, and economy. To date, we’ve collectively managed to dodge that bullet. As we approach flu season this year, though, some experts are wondering out loud whether our luck might have run out. That concern is bolstered by the fact that Australia “had a very bad …

Decreasing Margins May Move Hospitals to Partner More Frequently with Urgent Care

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients who may have previously gone to the closest hospital emergency room for nonemergent complaints simply went without care or managed to get care through other means. According to an article just published by Fierce Healthcare, margins at those hospitals have suffered accordingly, with the real threat that they’ll continue to do so thanks to patients’ new reliance on urgent care, telehealth, and other options. As a result, …