Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

CDC Suggests Comprehensive Approach With Doxy PEP Recommendations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week released new clinical guidelines on the use of doxycycline postexposure prophylaxis (doxy PEP) for bacterial sexually transmitted infection prevention. In part, CDC’s recommendations include the use of doxy PEP for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TGW) who have had a bacterial sexually transmitted infections diagnosed in the past 12 months as part of provider shared decision-making. …

Where to Find Current Information on Change Health Cyberattack Remedies

The Department of Health and Human Services is monitoring the ongoing fallout from the Change Healthcare cyberattack and has launched a dynamic website that will be updated as information emerges. In addition, Change Healthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group (UHG), is now essentially tasked with sending out the required HIPAA breach notifications to patients and completing related administrative requirements on behalf of any provider that was affected. Federal officials at the Office for Civil Rights ruled …

Heat Waves Increase Risk of Preterm Birth

Researchers have identified local heat waves as a factor that can lead to an increased risk of preterm birth and stillbirth, according to a cohort study published in JAMA Network Open. Authors found a significant link between periods of high temperatures in some of the top metropolitan statistical areas in the United States and early deliveries. Looking at 53 million births from 1993 to 2017, they concluded that after 4 consecutive days of mean temperatures …

CDC Ramps up H5N1 Surveillance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has asked state health officials to keep up with flu surveillance over the summer to watch for human-to-human spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus, according to CIDRAP. Flu surveillance generally wanes during the warmer months when there are fewer seasonal flu virus cases. H5N1 vaccines exist, but the nation is far from ready for a full-scale national vaccine program should the virus become a widespread health …

Return Visits and Hospitalization Rates of Adult Patients Discharged with Tachycardia After an Urgent Care Visit: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Urgent Message: Patients discharged from an urgent care clinic with tachycardia were found to have significantly higher odds of return visits to the urgent care and emergency department as well as higher odds of being admitted to the hospital within 7 days compared to non-tachycardic patients. Vitoria Regina Nunes Maia, MD; Ryan Loh, PhD; Michael Weinstock, MD; Lindsey E. Fish, MD Citation: Maia VRN, Loh R, Weinstock M, Fish L. Return Visits and Hospitalization Rates …

Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Urgent Care Site Selection

Urgent Message: Location and accessibility are keys to success for any urgent care. Operators must avoid common pitfalls when evaluating a site for their next venture. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, is President of Experity Consulting and is Senior Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Citation: Ayers, A. Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Urgent Care Site Selection. J Urgent Care Med. 2024; 18(9): 22-25 Experience tells us that friendly service, competent providers, short wait …

It’s Time for Us to Get Involved

Roger Hicks, MD I live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, where, like numerous other parts of the world, extreme weather events are becoming increasingly routine occurrences. The “hot days” are hotter and more abundant, and the droughts are more severe. In turn, this has precipitated more wildfires, which lead to problematic smoke and hazardous air quality. When I opened my urgent care (UC) clinic 24 years ago, I never thought …

Categorization of Codes Most Frequently Used in Urgent Care

International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes—maintained by the World Health Organization and published in the United States by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—standardize the categorization and reporting of patient diagnoses. Currently, U.S. healthcare operators use the ICD-10 edition. The analysis below examines 2023 urgent care visits logged by users of Experity’s electronic medical record, revealing that 28,686 diagnosis codes were documented in urgent care patient medical records. While it’s logical to conclude …

Dyspnea in the Urgent Care: Differentiating Benign From ‘Can’t Miss’

Urgent Message: Patients commonly present with respiratory symptoms in the urgent care setting and not infrequently complain of some degree of shortness of breath—or dyspnea. It is critical for clinicians to have comfort with the clinical assessment and appropriate use of diagnostic resources for the dyspneic patient. Identifying patients requiring immediate emergency department referral is an important skill. Evan Price, DO; Eric Patten, MD; Shakil Hossain, DO; Michael Weinstock, MD Citation: Price E, Patten E, …

Abstracts in Urgent Care – June 2024

Using AI to Detect Myocardial Infarction Take Home Point: The use of an occlusive myocardial infarction (OMI) artificial intelligence (AI) electrocardiogram (ECG) model has the potential to improve identification of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) by enabling timely and accurate detection of OMI regardless of the presence ST-segment elevation. Citation: Herman R, Meyers H, Smith S, et. al. International evaluation of an artificial intelligence-powered electrocardiogram model detecting acute coronary occlusion myocardial infarction. Eur Heart J Digit …