Practice Management
The Food and Drug Administration says battery-powered medical carts are to blame for a series of fires in facilities across the country, leading the agency to publish a warning letter recommending that all medical offices, including urgent care centers, take preventive measures. While the size of some carts makes their use prohibitive in many urgent care locations, larger centers, such as those that might be affiliated with a healthcare system, that use such systems are …
Read More
The evolution of electronic health records (or, more specifically, the data they house) pairs well—and not so coincidentally—with the growth of urgent care over the past decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sees electronic data collection as having greater application and significance than simply allowing patient histories to be readily accessible, though. The CDC is working out the optimal way to foster sharing of healthcare data across literal borders to identify—and, hopefully, …
Read More
Patients who read (or, maybe more likely, see an online or television commercial) about “new” disorders whose descriptions may apply to them could be inclined to run off to the urgent care center for immediate evaluation, even if there’s nothing urgent about their condition. Diagnoses that didn’t even exist or were seldom made a decade ago (eg, adult ADHD, low testosterone) are now being described in breathless detail. Even recognized disease states like diabetes continue …
Read More
While the University of Georgia joins the pack of institutions warning that immunizations are dangerously low this flu season (roughly 40% of what they should be at this time of year), a new study by Amino reveals that patients in the millennial age group are the most likely to visit either an urgent care center or the emergency room when the think they have the flu. These two pieces of data, though flowing from different …
Read More
Americans who have heeded the advice of healthcare providers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get a flu shot are in the minority so far this season. Only 40% of patients have been immunized according to the CDC, leaving the majority at risk of both getting the flu and of passing it along to others. Many people aged 50–64 years are among those most at risk, as they’re just starting to …
Read More
Workers have come to expect a certain amount of celebration come holiday time—often including end-of-year bonuses or gifts. This does not have to be a meaningless distraction from ensuring the urgent care runs efficiently and takes care of patients effectively, though; looking beyond “secret Santa” gifts and office parties can actually strengthen employee engagement and loyalty. Physicians Practice magazine suggests focusing on gestures that will be meaningful to the individual, such as the following: A …
Read More
Influenza sits alone as the only infectious disease among the top 10 causes of death in the United States, proving more work needs to be done to ensure everyone who needs a flu shot gets one. Urgent care is ideally suited to saving lives through prevention in this area, being an increasingly popular destination for people without a “medical home” and among newly insured patients. Influenza and pneumonia are listed as the seventh leading causes …
Read More
Data from the National Health Survey show healthcare considered routine by today’s standards is simply inaccessible for some 20.3 million children, in spite of the fact that the number of uninsured children has plummeted by nearly two thirds in the past decades (from 10 million uninsured in 1997 to 3.3 million in 2015). This is most evident in preventive medicine (including immunizations), management of acute and chronic medical conditions, and timely access to subspecialists, according …
Read More
Many urgent care centers have seen great success promoting their capabilities to care for young athletes, whether by offering sports physicals or letting it be known they’re able to evaluate and treat orthopedic injuries and concussions. While data on how many urgent care centers can perform electrocardiograms are scarce, offering heart tests for teenagers could be the next logical step forward, both in terms of establishing your business but also in uncovering potential life-threatening problems …
Read More
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been very active in pushing for more responsible antibiotic prescribing lately. Now they’ve issued more formal direction in the form of guidelines for antibiotic prescribing in outpatient settings, offering four stewardship “pillars” for prescribers to follow. CDC’s Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship, published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), recommends that outpatient facilities like urgent care centers demonstrate dedication to and accountability for optimizing …
Read More