Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

How to Choose the Right Level of Surveillance and Security for an Urgent Care Center

Urgent Message: Choosing the right security system—whether it’s surveillance cameras or a scalable monitored alarm network—can improve operational oversight and reduce the financial risk of your urgent care investment. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Keywords: urgent care security; surveillance cameras; HIPAA compliance; monitored alarm systems; healthcare facility safety; operational risk management Whether you’re just starting in urgent care or managing a growing footprint of centers, securing your physical space is essential to protecting your investment. …

Potential Impact of Urgent Care Providers in Facilitating Lung Cancer Screening

Claire Katen; Cindy Lockett, MD It is well documented that Americans’ overall health lags behind that of other nations with the United States ranking 46th in life expectancy globally.1 This disparity is likely driven by multiple factors with limited access to healthcare services playing a significant role.2 As a premedical student, I, like many aspiring and active healthcare professionals, would like to close healthcare gaps and contribute to improving patient health outcomes. The urgent care …

75-Year-Old With History Of Hypertension And Diabetes

A 75-year-old female with a history of hypertension and diabetes presents with 1 day of dizziness and nausea. She is markedly bradycardic with a heart rate of 32 beats per minute and blood pressure of 88/52 on arrival. She was awake, alert, and oriented.

Wheezing as a Pneumothorax Presentation: A Case Report

Urgent Message: For patients with presumed asthma exacerbation, clinicians must maintain a high index of suspicion for other etiologies, including pneumothorax. This may help avoid delays in potentially life-saving interventions when symptoms persist despite treatment or when physical exam findings are atypical. Badi Eghterafi, DO; Nazanin Hazhir Karzar, MD Keywords: asthma, wheezing, chest pain, pneumothorax, spontaneous pneumothorax Abstract Introduction: Large spontaneous pneumothorax is an uncommon but critical complication in patients with asthma. Clinicians evaluating presumed …

51-Year-Old With Chest Pain After a Skiing Fall

A 51-year-old male presents to urgent care after falling while skiing. He reports catching an edge in a patch of slushy snow, causing him to pitch forward and land forcefully onto his left anterior chest. He immediately experienced localized pain over the left chest, worsened by deep inspiration and coughing. He denies shortness of breath, syncope, and neck or head trauma. On exam, vital signs are normal. There is focal tenderness over the left anterior …

Should Nurses Deliver More Care To Address Physician Shortages?

A recent Cochrane review and meta-analysis evaluated the impact of “substituting nurses for physicians” in the hospital setting, based on the rationale that demand for health services is increasing worldwide at a time when there is also a shortage of physicians. Leveraging nurses more could be a way to improve access for many provider organizations. Across 80 randomized studies involving about 28,000 patients in 20 countries, researchers from Ireland, United Kingdom, and Australia found advanced …

Momentum Matters

March has always felt like a turning point to me. The energy of the new year settles into steady motion, plans become real work, and the direction ahead starts to feel clear. For Urgent Care, that sense of momentum is especially strong right now. In February, leaders from across our field came together in Washington, D.C., for the Urgent Care Association Capitol Hill Advocacy Day. Those few days captured something important about who we are …

Remind Parents To Avoid Inclined Sleepers For Their Infants

Sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs) associated with the use of “inclined sleepers”—baby seats that are not firm or flat, which also do not align with the established recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)—kept rising even after such products were recalled in 2019, according to a study published in Pediatrics. From 2009 to 2023, there were 158 SUIDs in inclined sleepers, and 50 deaths (32%) occurred after 2019. An additional 108 deaths (68%) occurred …

POC Viral Testing and Stewardship Reduces Antibiotic Prescribing in UC

Researchers found combining a 15-pathogen point-of-care (POC) respiratory viral panel with an antimicrobial stewardship intervention program resulted in reduced antibiotic prescribing in an urgent care setting in Louisiana, as published in Microbiology Spectrum. Alongside the stewardship program—which included patient education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MITIGATE tool kit—the POC panel was used for 296 adult patients, and results were compared with 600 seasonally matched historical controls. Overall antibiotic prescribing decreased from 38.2% …

Antivirals Underprescribed For Older Adults

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found low use of COVID-19 antiviral drugs among individuals age 65 and older, even though it’s a population at high risk of severe illness and COVID-19–related hospitalization, according to the recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Researchers examined cases in outpatient settings with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result or COVID-19 diagnosis during June 1, 2023–September 30, 2025. A total of 482,456 patient encounters with a COVID-19 diagnosis …

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