Practice Management
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved 4 updated 2026–2027 COVID-19 vaccines for the upcoming respiratory virus season. All of the new formulations have been updated for XFG variant, according to FDA, and all follow the somewhat tighter age and risk restrictions that were introduced in 2025. Prior to the 2024–2025 season, vaccination was broadly recommended for everyone aged 6 months and older. Now, a healthy 50-year-old with no underlying risk factor, for example, …
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The updated American Academy of Neurology (AAN)/American Headache Society (AHS) guidelines for pharmacologic prevention of migraine in adults were published this week in Neurology and endorsed by the American Academy of Family Physicians. The guidelines suggest a migraine visit should also be considered as an opportunity for clinicians to identify patients who need preventive therapy beyond just treatment for the acute event. According to the update, preventive treatment should be offered to adults with 4 …
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Lumbar belts appear to be helpful for alleviating low back pain, possibly offering a reasonable alternative to pain medication. In an analysis published in JAMA Network Open of 168 adults with nonspecific low back pain lasting 1–6 months, researchers evaluated whether adding a nonrigid lumbar belt to usual care improved pain and function. Patients assigned to the belt were instructed to wear it 4–8 hours daily for 12 weeks. At 12 weeks, disability scores improved …
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a continuous glucose and ketone monitoring system, which it says is the first wearable device that monitors both levels simultaneously with a single sensor. The system measures glucose and ketones in interstitial fluid every minute for up to 10 days and transmits the information to the patient’s smartphone. Patients arriving in urgent care will be able to present not just current ketone readings but the direction and …
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Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in urgent care settings appear to produce practice improvement, according to a new systematic review published in Cureus. Researchers evaluated literature reporting on ASPs specifically in urgent care settings and found that 11 of 12 completed studies demonstrated reduced antimicrobial prescribing or improved appropriateness in prescribing patterns among clinicians. Education and guideline-based strategies produced some of the largest improvements. For example, an intervention that used clinical pathway pocket-card algorithms to guide …
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A prospective multicenter study that compared physical examination findings in children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) found that 2 clinicians examining the same patient may not always agree on whether certain physical findings are or are not present during an exam. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, included 252 patients aged 3 months–17 years with CAP evaluated at 7 pediatric emergency departments. Two clinicians independently examined each patient within 60 minutes. After the exam findings …
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized a new robotic device that can autonomously draw blood from a patient’s arm without hands-on operator intervention. Designed for adult outpatient blood collection, the robot essentially performs the entire venipuncture. First it uses near-infrared imaging and Doppler ultrasound to identify an appropriate vein, then applies the tourniquet, disinfects the skin, inserts the needle, changes collection tubes, disposes the needle, and applies a bandage. A trial involving 1,633 …
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Researchers examining electronic health record data found nirsevimab administration was associated with reduced antibiotic prescribing among infants during their first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season, as published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Among 15,341 eligible infants from 32 pediatric practices in the study, 7,413 (48.3%) received nirsevimab. At 6 months, nirsevimab was associated with a 14.4% reduction in antibiotic prescribing for outpatient acute respiratory tract infections and a 40.3% reduction for outpatient bronchiolitis. Antibiotic prescribing associated …
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Researchers found that women with urinary tract infection (UTI), those with noninfectious lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), and control subjects exhibited similar uropathogen levels when evaluated with quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) testing, as published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. They analyzed urine from 502 women: 104 with recurrent UTI and acute symptoms; 354 with noninfectious LUTS; and 44 asymptomatic controls. The qPCR tests detected bacterial DNA in nearly all participants, including E coli in 97.3%, …
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The 2024–2025 influenza season was characterized as having high severity, and in research published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, researchers found flu shots provided protection not just against hospitalization but also against emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) visits during that time. They evaluated influenza vaccine effectiveness using data from 7 healthcare systems in 8 states across 102,854 ED/urgent care visits among children and 233,411 visits among adults. Overall, vaccination was 54% effective against …
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