When Urgent Care Was the Closest Option, a Chest Pain Patient Found Lifesaving Care

The urgent care industry has done a great job of educating the public that UC is an ideal setting for most presentations short of life- or limb-threatening concerns. When the urgent care center is the closest healthcare facility in a dire situation, however, some patients and caregivers are likely to arrive with the hope that your team is prepared. That exact scenario unfolded when a patient experiencing “unbearable” chest pain presented at UConn Health Canton Urgent Care recently. As reported in UConn Today, the patient’s wife had every intention of driving him to the emergency room at nearby John Dempsey Hospital but pulled into the urgent care parking lot out of concern that it might be too late by the time they arrived at the hospital. The electrocardiogram started in the UCC showed that the patient was having an ST-elevated myocardial infarction. As soon as the team called 911 for an ambulance the patient suffered cardiac arrest. CPR and a shock with the AED brought him around and bought him enough time to get to the hospital, where he received further cardiac care. The story is not unique, of course, as evidenced by a quick look through the JUCM archive. A couple of good, related pieces to read would be Emergencies in the Office—Why Are 911 Calls Placed From Family Medicine and Urgent Care Offices? and No Troponin, No Problem: Reimagining Chest Pain Assessment in Urgent Care.