Harris Fleming, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

UCA Webinar: If Your Urgent Care Center Doesn’t ‘Do Digital,’ You Don’t Compete

Friction is something to be avoided, typically, whether it’s in coworker relationships, marriage, or even your car’s engine. The same holds true when trying to engage prospective patients in an urgent care center. Anything that adds a burden to the patient’s attempt to get care—unnecessary steps, unexpected waits, billing headaches—will make them think twice about where they choose to get that care. Reducing friction, conversely, gives them a pleasant experience they’re more likely to want …

How Will New Details of the Paycheck Protection Program Affect Your Urgent Care Center?

The Small Business Administration just released new details of its Paycheck Protection Program—including which businesses (including urgent care centers) will be identified publicly by name; the status of “loan forgiveness” considerations; and extension of the PPP through August 8. The SBA released the names of businesses that borrowed more than $150,000 through the PPP. Businesses that borrowed less remain anonymous. The SBA has not started accepting applications for loan forgiveness yet. Banks that are facilitating …

Data Reveal a New Risk Factor for Severe Illness with COVID-19—Are You Vigilant for It?

Two new studies have shown that elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), whether a patient has been diagnosed with diabetes or not, could be a risk factor for severe illness in patients with COVID-19. Authors of the first study, based on patients at a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China and published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, found an FBG of ≥6.23 mmol/L to be an optimal cutoff for poor prognosis within 30 days of hospital admission, …

Look into the Patient’s Eyes—They May Hold Additional Clues to Their COVID-19 Status

A clearer picture of the effects of COVID-19 on the eyes of infected patients is emerging in new data from Hubei province, China. Researchers there have found ocular manifestations including epiphora, conjunctival congestion, and other conditions occur commonly in patients with confirmed COVID-19. While the retrospective study was small (38 patients), it produced several results that could be helpful to urgent care providers who treat patients without other, more definitive signs of disease. Roughly one …

Think You Know How COVID-19 Is Transmitted? Hundreds of Scientists Suggest You Think Again

The World Health Organization has been at the forefront of proposing how COVID-19 is transmitted, with the main theory being that one person becomes infected by taking in relatively large droplets expelled when someone with the virus coughs, sneezes, speaks, etc. However, 239 scientists from 32 countries signed a letter claiming that even smaller particles can carry the virus—so small that they’re essentially wafting through the air from one side of a room to another, …

COVID-19 Haunts Healthcare Workers at Bedtime. How Is Your Staff Sleeping?

Every American is under additional stress these days, whether it’s due to having to adapt to a new way of working, the strain of social isolation, worry over an at-risk family member, or illness itself. That burden is multiplied for urgent care providers and other clinicians, of course, as they’re on the frontlines of the crisis. An article just published in the journal Sleep and Breathing suggests there is a causal link between COVID-19 and …

UCA Webinar: Better Onboarding Fosters Better Teams in Your Urgent Care Center

The process of recruiting, interviewing, and hiring the best talent for your urgent care center can be so overwhelming that by the time your new hire’s first day comes, it’s easy to think the rest will take care of itself. It won’t. The steps you take to “onboard” new team members can make all the difference in the world when it comes to how they’ll perform, and even how long they’ll stay in your employ. …

If the Patients Can’t Come to Urgent Care, This Operator Brings Urgent Care to the Patients

Too many urgent care centers have suffered financial and personnel losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. From being overlooked as viable participants in widespread testing efforts to patients who were too afraid to leave their homes even for medical care, the industry has taken a major hit. Some businesses may even go under. Others, however, are finding a way to adapt by offering telemedicine services or channeling patients to different locations for different needs. Merion Health …

Brace Yourself: Undiagnosed Cases of COVID-19 May Outnumber Confirmed Cases by 10 to 1

Some states have been accused of “reopening” their economies too soon, with the result being upsurges in COVID-19 cases—and renewed concerns that the healthcare system could be overwhelmed. This may not reflect a resurgence at all, however, but instead reveal the number of cases that had gone unrecognized previously. Robert Redfield, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggested recently that for every documented case of COVID-19, there are probably 10 more …

ED Utilization Data Reveal Where Urgent Care Could Make an Impact—and Draw Young Patients

A team of researchers who sought to understand what insights could be gleaned from studying emergency room utilization measures wound up revealing data that could be useful for urgent care operators seeking to bolster their pediatric services. A study just published in The American Journal of Managed Care considered whether ED visit count and ED reliance could be used to identify clinically or demographically different populations of children. Of interest to urgent care operators is …

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