Urgent Care Is Getting Good Press for Antibiotic Stewardship Efforts

Last year, urgent care was among the fields to be called out for too often prescribing antibiotics when none was warranted. The data were somewhat misleading, given that urgent care is also a setting to which many antibiotic-seeking patients turn. Nonetheless, the industry collectively took stock of itself and vowed to improve; and the fruits of that labor are already evident, and the world is noticing. The Urgent Care Association, for one, created an Antibiotic Stewardship Commendation program to recognize urgent care operators who commit themselves to four “core elements” of responsible antibiotic prescribing: commitment; action for policy and practice; tracking and reporting; and education and expertise. The public is already reading about it, too. HealthLeaders just ran an article explaining how Premier Health became one of the first urgent care operators to earn the commendation. Remember that antibiotic stewardship is about more than engendering positive public opinion, though Reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance literally saves lives; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 23,000 American die annually from infection with resistant organisms. JUCM was ahead of the curve in looking at this issue from an urgent care perspective; read Improving Appropriate Antibiotic Use for Common Clinical Conditions in Urgent Care to learn more.