As an emerging distinct practice environment, urgent care is in the early stages of building a data set specific to its norms and practices.
In Developing Data, JUCM will offer results not only from UCA’s annual benchmarking surveys, but also from research conducted elsewhere to present an expansive view of the healthcare marketplace in which urgent care seeks to strengthen its presence.
In this issue: What effect does the presence of a retail clinic have on choices parents make and how likely are they to visit an urgent care clinic when a retail clinic is not nearby?
Results are dependent upon the presence of retail clinics in the respondents’ community; just 29% reported having a retail clinic in close proximity, with just one in six parents saying they had taken their child to one. However, one in four of all respondents said they would be likely or very likely to take their children in the future.
Clearly, urgent care offers advantages over other settings: far more facilities across the country compared with retail clinics, quicker and less expensive visits than the ED, and, typically, better off-hour accessibility than pediatric practices. This begs the question: Why didn’t more parents say they would take their children to urgent care?
The survey illustrates the need to reach out to the community and to forge healthy relation- ships with pediatric and primary care physicians.