Clinical

A lesson in reducing unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics could be gleaned from a new study based in a large academic dental practice, of all places. It showed a 73% decrease in antibiotic prescribing vs baseline. The study population included 635 Medicaid members who sought urgent care for oral complaints at Illinois’ largest oral healthcare provider. Before the mandated intervention (patient and provider education and clinical guideline development), 8.5% of visits included a prescription for an …

One of the challenges of assessing patients for concussion in the urgent care center is that, most often, the examining clinician has had no previous contact with a given patient; there’s no baseline to compare their current condition against. A new piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association brings news of a new tool that diminishes the importance of a baseline for patient who may have sustained a concussion, however. EyeBox, approved …

As the 2018–19 influenza season peaks in the United States, public health officials and academic experts are pleading with patients to stay away from the emergency room if they have flu symptoms—and instead head to their nearest urgent care center. The Rhode Island Department of Health, for one, issued a statement singling out urgent care as the ideal setting for flu testing and treatment, to avoid both long waits and high costs in the ED …

Many parents opt to bring young athletes who’ve taken a blow to the head to an urgent care center instead of the emergency room or the pediatrician, especially if they’re concerned about excessive waits. As such, you should be aware of a new study out of the University of Buffalo that suggests a supervised aerobic exercise regimen spurs faster recovery in adolescents who’ve sustained a concussion while playing a sport. Researchers followed 103 subjects between …

Americans who receive primary care get significantly more high-value care, with better healthcare access and overall experience, than patients without primary care, according to a new study publised online by the Journal of the American Medical Association. For purposes of the study, primary care was defined as the provider “you usually go if you are sick or need advice about your health,” not including the emergency room. The researchers considered 39 clinical quality measures and …

Some 10% of patients will tell you they’re allergic to penicillin if the subject comes up, so you’d better give them something else if that’s what’s indicated for their diagnosis. The problem is, even those who believe what they’re saying are likely to be mistaken. As noted in an article just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, less than 5% of the U.S. population actually has an allergy to penicillin. In this …

Much of the northeast corner of the U.S. is expected to plunge into a deep freeze this week, raising the likelihood that your urgent care centers will be seeing cold weather-related injuries. Some can be relatively minor, such as acute back pain in the wake of heavy snow shoveling, but that same activity could spark chest pain, especially in older patients. Then there’s frostbite, hypothermia, and orthopedic presentations related to slipping on slick surfaces outside. …

Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School say inappropriate use of antibiotics is “still rampant,” with only 12.8% of antibiotic prescriptions in their study being given appropriately. Further, their data show a relatively low 6.7% of those prescriptions originated in urgent care centers, far less than suggested in a JAMA Internal Medicine piece published last October. This latest study, published in The BMJ, reflects insurance claims and shows that antibiotics were most commonly overprescribed …

When we consider ways in which disease is passed from one person to another, we probably think first about the home, classrooms, offices, or modes of transportation. However, your workplace—the urgent care center—may also be the source sometimes. And the danger isn’t limited to the waiting room. A new study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology notes that stethoscopes can transfer germs from one patient to the next, and suggests that a standardized approach …

Public health officials in numerous states, most notably California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are reporting significant flu activity—some exceeding even last year’s severe flu season. California has seen a relatively high number of deaths (42) for this point in the season. Roughly half of those have Top of Formoccurred in the elderly. Flu has been called “widespread” in New Jersey, to the extent that some hospitals there are imposing restrictions on people visiting hospitals. AtlantiCare …