Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Pediatric Vaccine Hesitancy in Families Seeking Care in Urgent Care Centers

Urgent Message: Despite national recommendations regarding childhood vaccination, some parents are hesitant or refuse to vaccinate their child. This survey assessment presents parents’ perceptions of vaccination and the scope of undervaccination in a pediatric urgent care population. Stacy B. Buchanan, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC; Brooke Cherven, PhD, MPH, RN; Betsy Dye, MS, CPNP-PC, NPD-BC, EBP-C; Temima Oratz, BSN, RN, EBP-C; Margaret Gettis, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC, EBP-C Keywords: vaccine hesitancy; childhood immunization; undervaccination; measles-mumps-rubella vaccine; varicella vaccine; …

We Must Meet Our Patients Where They Are

Lindsey E. Fish, MD, FCUCM, Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, [email protected] In this issue of JUCM, you will find an original research article exploring parental vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy is a challenging issue because it frequently triggers charged emotions in patients and clinicians alike. While there have always been strong opinions regarding vaccines, from the clinician perspective, the degree amplified significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. I will never forget reading about front-line physicians …

Opportunity Is Knocking. We Need to Answer.

Over the past year, I’ve written about telling our story, strengthening our voice, proving our value, and, most recently, Urgent Care’s evolution from a convenient alternative to an essential part of everyday healthcare. As I look at where we stand today, I believe we’re entering another important chapter. Healthcare is changing rapidly, and nearly every trend points in the same direction. Primary care physicians are retiring faster than they can be replaced. New physicians aren’t …

Coding Mistakes That Quietly Cost You Money

Brad Laymon, PA-C, CPC, CEMC Every clinician I work with wants to do right by their patients and their charts. Yet across the urgent care systems I consult with, the same quiet leaks show up repeatedly. None of these are dramatic errors. They may never trigger an audit flag. They simply shave a level off the visit, encounter after encounter, until the lost revenue becomes real. The most common leak I see is an abnormal …

Back Pain May Improve With Lumbar Belt Use

Lumbar belts appear to be helpful for alleviating low back pain, possibly offering a reasonable alternative to pain medication. In an analysis published in JAMA Network Open of 168 adults with nonspecific low back pain lasting 1–6 months, researchers evaluated whether adding a nonrigid lumbar belt to usual care improved pain and function. Patients assigned to the belt were instructed to wear it 4–8 hours daily for 12 weeks. At 12 weeks, disability scores improved …

Patients Can Now Track Their Ketone Trajectory

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a continuous glucose and ketone monitoring system, which it says is the first wearable device that monitors both levels simultaneously with a single sensor. The system measures glucose and ketones in interstitial fluid every minute for up to 10 days and transmits the information to the patient’s smartphone. Patients arriving in urgent care will be able to present not just current ketone readings but the direction and …

Is It Okay For Patients To Sneak a Peek In The Portal?

Waiting for test results can be a nerve-wracking experience for patients, and many are accessing results in a portal before their clinician even gets a look. In a nationally representative survey of 4,982 U.S. adults, 68.6% of respondents said they viewed their test results through a patient portal before hearing from their healthcare practitioner. Among those who viewed results first, 6.6% reported poor understanding of what the results showed and what they meant for their …

Urgent Care Antibiotic Stewardship Produces Positive Results

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in urgent care settings appear to produce practice improvement, according to a new systematic review published in Cureus. Researchers evaluated literature reporting on ASPs specifically in urgent care settings and found that 11 of 12 completed studies demonstrated reduced antimicrobial prescribing or improved appropriateness in prescribing patterns among clinicians. Education and guideline-based strategies produced some of the largest improvements. For example, an intervention that used clinical pathway pocket-card algorithms to guide …

Clinicians Don’t Always Agree On Physical Exam Findings

A prospective multicenter study that compared physical examination findings in children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) found that 2 clinicians examining the same patient may not always agree on whether certain physical findings are or are not present during an exam. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, included 252 patients aged 3 months–17 years with CAP evaluated at 7 pediatric emergency departments. Two clinicians independently examined each patient within 60 minutes. After the exam findings …

Blood Drawing Robot Rarely Misses. Patients Seem To Like It.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized a new robotic device that can autonomously draw blood from a patient’s arm without hands-on operator intervention. Designed for adult outpatient blood collection, the robot essentially performs the entire venipuncture. First it uses near-infrared imaging and Doppler ultrasound to identify an appropriate vein, then applies the tourniquet, disinfects the skin, inserts the needle, changes collection tubes, disposes the needle, and applies a bandage. A trial involving 1,633 …

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