Practice Management
New provisional data shows 2024 was the third consecutive year of declines in the combined total number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall trend shows a 9% decline from the previous year’s case numbers. Even with that positive news, there were still more than 2.2 million reported sexually transmitted infections in 2024, and overall cases are 13% higher than a decade ago. Most …
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As of September 30, 2025, there have been a total of 1,324 human cases of West Nile virus reported in 42 states this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This compares with 1,791 cases for all of 2024, but it’s far below the 9,862 cases reported in 2003—the highest incidence across the past 25 years. Colorado has been particularly hard hit with 235 cases and 12 deaths this year, according …
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The last influenza season (2024–2025) was categorized as high-severity with more cases and hospitalizations than the previous 14 years. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is also showing 109 rare cases of pediatric influenza-associated encephalopathy (IAE) occurred last year as well. Overall, 74% of IAE patients were admitted to an intensive care unit, and 19% died. Only 16% of vaccine-eligible IAE patients had received the 2024–2025 flu vaccine. Of the …
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Whether private equity (PE) is friend or foe in the healthcare market is still a subject of intense debate. A new study of emergency department (ED) visits published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine found that patient mortality and outside transfers increased in PE-owned hospitals once the hospital was acquired. These EDs experienced 7 additional deaths per 10,000 visits after acquisition relative to control (13.4% increase from a raw baseline of 52.4 deaths per 10,000; …
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A new clinical practice guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association helps support physicians who are treating patients with gastroparesis. The condition is difficult to diagnose and treat, so the new guidelines outline the current state of the evidence for clinical options, as published in Gastroenterology. Part of the motivation for publishing the insight comes from possible new risks for gastroparesis related to glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists that are increasingly being used by patients for …
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Children with elevated blood pressure in childhood can experience a greater risk of early death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in adulthood, a new long-term study in JAMA finds. At baseline, 21% of the 37,081 children studied were classified as having hypertension, while about 19% were classified as having elevated blood pressure. Participants (born from 1959 to 1966) were followed to a median age of 54 years. At follow-up, a 1-SD higher systolic blood pressure measure …
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A large Swedish study that examined prenatal exposure to prescribed opioid pain medications and the child’s risk of later developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found no causal link between prescribed opioid use during pregnancy and risk of the conditions. As published in PLOS Medicine, researchers analyzed data from more than 1.2 million children for ASD (2007–2018) and more than 900,000 children for ADHD (2007–2015). By the time the subjects were 10 …
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A study in a public school system found that younger students had the highest rates of respiratory virus detections compared to older grades, as published in Pediatrics. From November 2022 to May 2023, 816 students and staff in the North Kansas City, Missouri, school system provided 5,981 nasal swab samples and 5,198 monthly symptom surveys for the pre-kindergarten (pre-K) through 12th grade classes for 24.5 weeks. Overall, 85.5% of students and staff had at least …
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Parents and clinicians don’t always share the same perspectives on diagnostic testing for pediatric diarrhea, according to a qualitative study published in JAMA Network Open. Interviews with 44 parents (91% female; median age, 34 years) and 16 clinicians (69% female; median age, 42 years) from 5 urgent care sites and 1 emergency department in Utah demonstrated the differences in their expectations. Participating clinicians included 10 physicians (62%) and 6 nurse practitioners or physician assistants (38%). …
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In a quasi-experimental study involving 2 Denver Health urgent care centers, an antibiotic stewardship program known as the Take 5 Campaign increased the rates of adherence to a recommended 5-day antibiotic prescribing duration, according to a new study published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. “Antibiotic stewardship in urgent care is critical,” says Lindsey E. Fish, MD, study author and Editor in Chief of JUCM. “While many programs focus on decreasing inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, ensuring the …
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