Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

The Rise of Medical Scribes: A Fit for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: As urgent care operators look for ways to speed patient flow and raise visit revenue, medical scribes may be a solution for increasing provider efficiency and improving documentation accuracy. How this article helps you: provides information useful in deciding whether your center would benefit from hiring scribes. Introduction Urgent care is unique among health-care delivery models in its focus on providing quick turnaround. To get patients in and out of the center in …

Using Key Performance Indicators to Measure, Track, and Improve Performance in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Key performance indicators provide the yardstick by which urgent care strategy and execution are tracked over time, highlighting areas requiring management intervention, facilitating comparison with peers, and enabling a culture of continual improvement. Introduction Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable business metrics used by organizations to gauge various aspects of their performance over time. Regular monitoring and evaluation of KPIs help provide insight into an organization’s financial health and spotlight organizational strengths and weaknesses. KPIs are also used to set strategic and …

Joint Ventures Between Health Systems and Urgent Care: Achieving the Best of Both Worlds

Urgent message: As hospitals and health systems develop and grow +their urgent care footprints, many leverage the expertise and experience of outside partners. Five common affiliation models fit differing strategic objectives and distinct market conditions. As the number of urgent care centers increases across the United States, so too do the variety of urgent care center models and the ways in which urgent care centers seek to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Gone are the …

Open-Book Management: Using Transparency and Gamification to Engage and Empower Frontline Staff

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Practice Velocity Urgent care requires dedicated, engaged, and focused frontline staff members to deliver the types of patient experiences that spur repeat visits and positive word of mouth. Yet a Gallup poll conducted in 2014 showed that a paltry 32% of U.S. workers are truly engaged in their jobs.1 That means that more than two-thirds of America’s workforce is simply going through the motions—which engagement experts have clearly demonstrated has a …

Roundtable: Expert Perspectives on X-Ray Over- Read Strategies in Urgent Care

Urgent message: To ensure a high quality of patient care and reduce the risk of medical errors while also controlling administrative overhead, every urgent care center should have a clear policy and process for radiologist interpretation of x-ray images, image over-read, or both. IntroductionAs health-care costs continue to multiply, it is important to consider money-saving measures across the board. Radiography is an essential service in differentiating urgent care centers from primary care and other providers, …

We’re All in This Together: Four Attributes of Effective Medical Center Teams

Urgent message: Creating and cultivating cohesive, goal-oriented, and patient-focused urgent care teams starts with visible front-line leaders who emphasize a strong service culture, open communication, personal accountability, and management transparency. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Practice Velocity Introduction The stress, resentment, and dissatisfaction that one experiences being part of a disconnected and ineffective team are not easily forgotten. Common sense may lead one to believe that the safest path is to ignore the team’s dysfunction and consider it just a part of …

From ZoomCare to ZOOM+: What Can Urgent Care Learn?

Urgent message: ZoomCare, which operates 28 walk-in clinics in the Pacific Northwest, has long been a technological innovator, launching web registration, scheduling, and telemedicine in its markets. In the past year, ZoomCare has evolved further to create ZOOM+, integrating urgent care with insurance, primary care, wellness, specialists, and ancillary services. As ZOOM+ redefines the future of urgent care around the needs of its community, there is much that other urgent care operators can learn in attaining revenue growth from a maturing …

Janitorial and Maintenance Roundtable: Best Practices for Managing Environmental Services

Urgent message: Every urgent care center must have a plan to clean and maintain its physical facility. In this JUCM-exclusive panel discussion, industry leaders share their insights on selecting an environmental services contractor, negotiating pricing, and maintaining service levels. Urgent care is often considered a blind product because patients generally lack the formal training necessary to assess the quality of the actual medical services delivered. As a result, satisfaction or dissatisfaction is determined in large …

After Signing the Lease: Ensuring a Successful Build-Out of Your Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: This exclusive interview with Brent Johnson, Vice President of Midland General Contractors, focuses on dealing with general contractors, time lines, the permit process, build-out costs, and common pitfalls when setting up a new urgent care center. Introduction “Location, location, location” has long been the success mantra of the retail and service industries. Because urgent care centers are a consumer-facing delivery channel for health care, location is also a key success determinant in that field. High traffic counts, good signage visibility, high …

Urgent Care Solutions for Health Systems to Improve Access

Urgent message: Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands health insurance coverage to millions of previously uninsured, many of the newly insured grapple with lack of access to quality, on-demand care, which leads to increased emergency department use. Urgent care provides a solution for health systems to expand access, reduce the number of unnecessary emergency department visits, and realize the goal of integrated population health management. MICHAEL F. BOYLE, MD, MBA, FACEP Introduction …