Harris Fleming, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

New CDC Guidance Lays Out Essential Safety Precautions for Critical Infrastructure Workers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new advisory clarifying steps that should be taken to decrease risk of COVID-19 infection in critical infrastructure workers—while also reconfirming that those workers “be permitted to continue work following potential exposure to COVID-19, provided they remain asymptomatic and additional precautions are implemented to protect them and the community. Interim Guidance for Implementing Safety Practices for Critical Infrastructure Workers Who May Have Had Exposure to a …

Northwell Health-GoHealth Offers Priority Urgent Care to First Responders

Every night at 7 pm in some cities, residents come out on their front stoops or hang out their windows to cheer, clap, and bang pots and pans together in a show of appreciation for frontline healthcare workers and first responders. Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care may be going them one better by giving those workers priority access to care at 52 urgent care centers in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County, NY during …

Another Test for SARS-CoV-2—This One Based on Salivary Swabs

After an outright cure for or a vaccine to prevent COVID-19, the Holy Grail of the pandemic is a reliable method of testing patients who may have been infected. A new study out of the University of Insubria, Varese, Italy shows that testing saliva could be as reliable as anything else. Researchers got positive tests from their first salivary swab in all 25 patients who took part. Interestingly, two of those patients had negative pharyngeal …

Sleep Problems and Burnout Are Secondary Threats to Providers in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Even urgent care providers who have not been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus are feeling the ill effects of the pandemic. According to a new article in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (subscription required), clinicians who are working longer-than-usual shifts or working shifts out of their normal routine (such as filling in on an overnight emergency room shift or taking on 12-hour telemedicine stretches) are more prone to poor or insufficient sleep and increased …

Air Samples Indicate Transmission Distance for SARS-CoV-2 May Exceed 6 Feet

We’ve all been operating under the guidance that 6 feet could be considered relatively “safe” distancing between individuals in order to slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, new data from Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China indicate that the transmission distance might be twice that or more—at least 4 meters, or 13.1 feet-plus according to a study of air samples there. The researchers based their findings on swab samples from the intensive care unit …

‘Flu Kills More People’ Safety Net Regarding COVID-19 Is Starting to Crumble

In spite of a nearly constant flow of information from mainstream media, federal officials, and local health departments, some individuals continue to dismiss the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic because “more people die of the flu every year.” Unfortunately, that belief is starting to be disproven in some parts of the U.S. Indiana, for one, confirmed that its death rate due to COVID-19 in just a 4-week period exceeded the state’s 5-year average for annual …

Walgreens Dives into the COVID-19 Testing Pool, Hoping to Draw More Patients

In line with recent efforts by retail drugstores to bulk up primary care-type offerings, Walgreens plans to open 15 drive-thru COVID-19 testing locations in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. The company says it chose locations after consulting with the Department of Health and Human Services on areas where the virus is on the rise. The move comes weeks after Walgreens, CVS Health, Target, and Walmart joined President Trump to discuss how retailers …

UCA Is Amassing Resources to Support Urgent Care Providers in Fighting COVID-19

The Urgent Care Association may have been forced to cancel its annual convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has repurposed the time and energy that would have gone in that direction to produce a range of support materials for its constituency. On the business side, UCA asked its policy consultant, Camille Bonta, MHS to share a summary of recent legislation and regulatory changes that could be helpful to urgent care centers; Staying Afloat …

Could Temporary Waivers Pave the Way for Greater Use of Telehealth in Urgent Care?

The challenge of keeping patients who could be highly contagious with a potentially deadly infection out of your facility, while still providing care for them is one of the greatest challenges facing many urgent care facilities during the COVID-19 crisis. Some who never saw the utility of telehealth are now using it as a screening tool, however. One Chicago-based ER doc who is also heavily involved in urgent care has pulled several 12-hour telehealth shifts …

As New Processes Take Hold, Some Healthcare Providers Are Losing Shifts

It seems paradoxical at first thought, but one of the unforeseen consequences of the COVID-19 crisis is that some healthcare providers—certainly high on the list of “essential workers”—may see their jobs adversely affected by the pandemic. As noted in a post on Inside Sources, emergency rooms are emptying out as hospitals reroute patients presenting with symptoms or even concerns related to the virus to other areas of the hospital. Many other patients are opting not …

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