Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Spokane VA Opts to Expand Urgent Care Hours Instead of Reopening ED

Plans to reopen an emergency room that closed in 2014 have been scrapped in favor of expanding the hours of a nearby urgent care center in Spokane, WA. Administrators at the Mann-Grandstaff Veterans Affairs Medical Center haven’t hired enough physicians to staff the ED, so rather than delay further or try to get by on insufficient staffing, the plan is to keep the urgent care center open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. …

Let Patients Know When You’re Available Over the Holidays

Last month we told you the day after Thanksgiving is the second busiest day of the year for urgent care centers—with December 26 being the busiest. Some of that volume is due to patients who assumed they either had to head to the emergency room or wait a day or more to get care. If your urgent care center is going to be open Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day, the time to let your …

Holiday Celebrations Often Followed by a Trip to Urgent Care

Whether it’s due to undercooking, carving, or trying to deep fry a turkey, the day after Thanksgiving is the second busiest day of the year in urgent care (followed by the day after Christmas), according to a CityMD survey of its own physicians. Overall, 60% of CityMD’s urgent care centers in the New York and Seattle areas see an increase in patient visits related to cooking wounds, such as lacerations and burns, around the Thanksgiving …

Helping the Student Body Stay Healthy Helps Your Business

Colleges (not to mention nervous moms and dads) probably do everything they can to ensure that students know where the infirmary or student health center is located. While that’s clearly important, hours of operation tend to me somewhat limited. Students, especially those who may away from home for the first time, need to have a back-up plan when injury or illness strikes—and your urgent care center should be part of it. Ensure that it is …

Time Preference

In 2015, Merchant Medicine (Shoreview, Minnesota) released data from a detailed national study conducted in 2014 of U.S. patients’ preferences regarding retail clinics versus urgent care clinics versus primary-care physicians’ offices. The survey involved more than 2,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 54 years and was conducted by Sparks Research and Merchant Medicine on behalf of DXM Marketing Group. Urgent care is still sometimes viewed as being only for nights and weekends, but …

You Close at What Time!?

I do most of my banking online and through the ATM. Recently, though, I needed to conduct business in person at a JPMorganChase branch. I knew the branch closed at 6:00 pm so I broke away from the office, dodged North Dallas traffic, and rushed into the branch at 5:58 pm, sliding in just before they locked the doors. Or did I? When the manager saw me she asked, “Did you rush to get here?” …