Practice Management
Urgent message: The incidence of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is seasonal in nature, with a peak during the winter months and a trough in the summer months. In the urgent care setting, primary concerns are risk factors for CAP, as well as current treatment and testing guidelines. Overview Pneumonia is an acute alveolar lung infection that presents with infiltrates upon chest imaging and is often accompanied by fever, cough, sputum production, shortness of breath, and physical …
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Patients may have contracted pneumonia in another healthcare setting, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be walking through your door when symptoms hit them hard and fast. Worse, antibiotic resistance is a real threat in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP); in fact, recent studies have shown that resistance has more than doubled admissions to the ICU and increased complications by 51%. Are you prepared to identify CAP in your urgent care center—and to treat patients early so …
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A 37-year-old woman without a significant past medical history presents after 3 days of a cough that produces yellow sputum with some streaks of blood. She has not checked her temperature but says she has “felt warm” and has some chills. She does have associated shortness of breath, but she reports that she has not had chest pain, leg pain or swelling, sweating, or headache. She has a history of hypertension, and she takes an …
Read MorePyuria Poor Predictor of UTI in Nephrolithiasis Key point: Classic symptoms and urine culture are the best indicators of infection in patients with acute nephrolithiasis. Pyuria proved a poor predictor. Citation: Abrahamian FM, Krishnadasan A, Mower WR, Moran GJ, Talan DA. Association of pyuria and clinical characteristics with the presence of urinary tract infection among patients with acute nephrolithiasis. Ann Emerg Med 2013;62(5):526-533. Infection can complicate the diagnosis of acute nephrolithiasis. Patients with both a …
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