Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

New Amazon AI Tools Sum Up Information, Handle Scheduling

Amazon Web Services has introduced Amazon Connect Health, a collection of artificial intelligence tools, including features that help clinicians sort out clinical information from patient histories. Amazon reasons that clinicians and staff spend too much time cobbling together information, and the new agentic AI tools can take on that task instead. Already in service at UC San Diego, the AI suite is verifying patients’ identities; handling appointment scheduling in real time; creating summaries of medical …

Older Adults Willing To Drive An Hour For Care

A national survey of 2,650 U.S. adults aged 65 years and older examined how far patients are willing to travel for routine medical care before delaying or skipping appointments, as published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers found the median acceptable travel times were about 68 minutes for primary care, 128 minutes for specialty care, and 113 minutes for diagnostic visits. Higher income, higher education, and the ability to drive oneself were associated with greater willingness …

Testing And Treating STIs Leads To Progress

Analysis of U.S. surveillance data found that HIV coinfection occurs in about 1 in 12 adolescents diagnosed with early syphilis, though the proportion has declined in recent years. Among 28,965 adolescents ages 15 to 19 with primary, secondary, or early latent syphilis from 2014–2023, 9% also had HIV, as reported in MedPage Today reporting on the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Additionally, 27% of the adolescents had unknown HIV status. In terms of trends, …

How Should Regulators Structure New AI Rules?

The American Hospital Association (AHA) and healthcare solution providers are chiming in on how they want federal regulators to structure their oversight of artificial intelligence and its integration into clinical care. For example, AHA suggested that regulations should rely on existing rules to smooth the path to innovation while also preempting state laws. It also wants to see AI companies required to meet compliance standards for privacy and security as HIPAA-covered entities. Additionally, AHA emphasizes …

RSV and Flu Tied to Severe Pediatric Respiratory Illness

In a cohort study of 516 children with viral respiratory infections who were hospitalized, researchers found 34 (6.6%) developed severe disease—defined as a clinical severity score greater than 3 (on a scale of 1-6), as published in JAMA Network Open. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza were strongly associated with worse outcomes. In multivariable analysis, RSV diagnosis (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 4.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.80–10.10) and influenza diagnosis (AOR, 4.13; 95% CI, 1.88–9.04) …

How To Improve Pediatric Hypertension Detection

Pediatric hypertension affects approximately 3-5% of children, yet fewer than 25% of cases are diagnosed and more than 60% do not receive recommended follow-up. In a study presented in JAMA Network Open including 25 clinicians across 10 pediatric primary care clinics, researchers in Delaware and Pennsylvania identified 5 major barriers that could affect the detection of kids’ hypertension. In semistructured qualitative interviews, clinicians cited the absence of standardized clinical pathways (endorsed by 80%), inconsistent training …

States Look To Limit Medical Debt Wage Garnishment

Lawmakers in Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington are looking to add protections for patients with unpaid medical debt by prohibiting wage garnishment for bill collection, according to MedPage Today. Proponents are concerned that some garnishment might occur for incorrect billing or that siphoning away a worker’s wages could leave low-income families without the money they need for heat, food, or housing. However, providers have concerns about accumulating bad debt that could …

An Evaluation of Unnecessary Prophylactic Antibiotics For Clean Lacerations

Urgent Message: Prophylactic antibiotic prescribing for patients with clean lacerations is a common but unnecessary practice. Rates of prescribing did not differ based on type of provider or physician specialty in this study of 20 urgent care centers. Michael Smart, PhD; Jennifer Bush, MSN, APRN, FNP-C/ENP-C Keywords: antimicrobial stewardship; prophylactic antibiotics; laceration repair; urgent care Abstract Background: Oral prophylactic antibiotics for clean lacerations that require suture repair are commonly prescribed when they are unneeded. We …

The ‘Halo Effect’ of Hybrid Care

Contrary to the fear that virtual care cannibalizes brick-and-mortar volume, 2025 data reveals a distinct “halo effect” for hybrid urgent care operators. Analysis of average daily visits shows that practices offering telemedicine outperformed those that did not by nearly 12%, averaging 34.5 visits per day compared to 30.8. Crucially, this growth is not purely digital. While hybrid clinics averaged 2.1 telemedicine cases daily, they also saw 32.4 in-person visits—approximately 2 more physical encounters per day …

Abstracts in Urgent Care – March 2026

Review of Evidence for Links of Autism with Maternal Acetaminophen Use Take Home Point: Existing evidence does not clearly link maternal acetaminophen (paracetamol) use during pregnancy with autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. Citation: Sheikh J, Allotey J, Sobhy S, et al. Maternal paracetamol (acetaminophen) use during pregnancy and risk of autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in offspring: umbrella review of systematic reviews. BMJ. 2025;391:e088141. doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088141 Relevance: Recent public discussion …

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