Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

CUCM Offers Input on Ebola Preparedness to Federal Agency

The College of Urgent Care Medicine’s (CUCM) Clinical Response Committee recently collaborated with representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to discuss Ebola preparedness. Even though no cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the United States, CDC is responsible for advanced public health preparation and mitigation strategies should any Ebola cases be identified. According to CUCM, the discussion between the federal agency and College’s committee is significant because it underscores the …

What Could Possibly Replace CPT Codes? CMS Is Asking.

The nonprofit PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) has filed a lawsuit against the American Medical Association (AMA) seeking to make Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes available to the public and health organizations free of charge, according to an announcement. Federal law requires healthcare entities to use CPT for Medicare claims, and most payer policies—including among state Medicaid programs—use CPT codes for billing as well. AMA has held the copyright for CPT since 1966, and it charges organizations for …

CUCM Begins Work on First Urgent Care NP Certification

The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board has confirmed a petition to begin development of the first Urgent Care Nurse Practitioner Certification, through a process led by the College of Urgent Care Medicine (CUCM). In September, a panel of selected urgent care nurse practitioner clinicians and leaders will meet in Las Vegas to begin the foundational work of identifying the knowledge domains, establishing practice standards, and outlining the blueprint for what will ultimately become …

Flu Shots Hold Their Own For The Upcoming Season

Medical societies are doubling down on recommendations for flu vaccines for the upcoming 2026–2027 season, which starts around the beginning of October. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), for example, is reinforcing its recommendations for flu vaccines for all children ages 6 months and older without contraindications, as published this week in Pediatrics. AAP specifically notes in a separate press release that the vaccines have been thoroughly studied and are safe for children. For the …

Rise In Vibrio Vulnificus Deaths Prompts Public Health Warnings

State health departments are reporting an increase in severe Vibrio vulnificus infections along the Gulf Coast in recent weeks with the highest concern currently centered around Louisiana, which has recorded 9 confirmed cases for the year so far. All 9 patients were hospitalized, and 5 have died. Louisiana normally averages about 7 cases and 1 death per year, so the case counts and deaths have prompted public warnings for consumers to stay out of the …

Urgent Care Question? Just Ask JUCM.

JUCM has released Ask JUCM, our new online tool powered by artificial intelligence, which allows visitors to search our journal’s complete educational library by asking a question in the “Ask JUCM” query box. Users get curated answers from JUCM—without spending time searching through individual articles. Ask a question in plain language and receive a concise, evidence-based answer, grounded in the journal’s trusted content. Ask JUCM provides another way to explore information that advances both clinical …

Bacterial Vaginosis Linked to Higher Rates of STI Coinfections

Among patients presenting for vaginitis evaluation, bacterial vaginosis was found to be strongly associated with increased risk of nonviral sexually transmitted coinfection, as published in O&G Open. Researchers retrospectively studied 1.5 million women who received molecular testing for bacterial vaginosis, vulvovaginal candidiasis, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) from 2022–2024 in the United States. They found bacterial vaginosis was detected in 38.7% of patients and vulvovaginal candidiasis was detected in 28.5% of patients—with 10.8% of patients …

Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome Records Triple With New ICD-10 Code

A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis identified 199,565 emergency department (ED) visits involving cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) in the United States from January 2023 through May 2026 and found that new coding helped to document patient cases of CHS. Researchers evaluated the time period before and after October 1, 2025, when the dedicated ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for CHS (R11.16) went into effect. The introduction of the ICD-10 code provided a direct way …

Oral Antihistamines Don’t Help Atopic Dermatitis

Routine oral antihistamines provide little benefit for moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, according to a new meta-analysis published in The BMJ. Researchers evaluated 47 trials involving 6,230 children and adults with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis across more than a dozen countries to determine whether adding oral antihistamines improves eczema outcomes. Although second-generation antihistamines (eg, cetirizine, loratadine, fexofenadine) produced statistically significant reductions in eczema severity and itch, the improvements were below established thresholds for clinical …

Drones Deliver Medication To Cleveland Clinic Patients

Cleveland Clinic has launched a medication home-delivery program that brings prescriptions to patients by drone, according to an announcement . The program currently serves patients within a 5-mile radius of the system’s main administrative campus, which functions as the drone operations hub, and the first patient deliveries were completed last week. What’s significant is that the health system plans to expand the service to additional locations and eventually add more items for drone transport, which …

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