Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

What Does It Mean to You When the CDC Uses the Term ‘Impending Doom’ Regarding the Pandemic?

Cases of COVID-19 have been up (way up, at times), they’ve plateaued, and they’ve gone down. Then up and down again. At no time, however, has a federal health official employed a word as dramatic as “doom” to describe the prospects of what comes next—until this week. Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said pointblank that the United States is looking at “impending doom” as the current increase in …

Estimates on COVID-19 Incidence Have Been Too Low—so Start Testing More Aggressively

It looks like millions of cases were missing from the number of U.S. COVID-19 infections reported through September 2020, according to data just published in JAMA Network Open. The problem seems to have been a lack of understanding of how prevalent the virus could be in asymptomatic patients. Blood samples from 61,910 adults who were “well” at the time they applied for life insurance showed a 6.6% positivity rate. Extrapolating that rate to the entire …

Mounting Data May Persuade Hesitant Staff to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccine

Perhaps counterintuitively, there have been widespread reports of healthcare workers refusing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, putting themselves, those around them, and your business at risk. Their choice is likely founded on the same baseless fears that keep too many members of the public away—mainly, that the speed at which the vaccines were studied and approved means they’re unproven or could be dangerous. Incidence of serious side effects has not proven to be any higher …

Prioritize Sleep as if Your Life Depends on It—Because It Might

Fluctuating shifts, a fast-paced work environment, and generally high stress brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic can conspire to make sleepless nights an all-too-common occurrence for urgent care professionals. There could be much higher consequences than next-day sluggishness and bags under your eyes, though. New research just published by BMJ Nutrition, Prevention, and Health reveals that clinicians who are frequently exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and who experience difficulty sleeping at night or poor sleep continuity, or …

Be Prepared: Most Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients Still Have Symptoms 6 Months Later

Patients may rightly feel a sense of relief upon “getting over” a virus that has killed more than half a million Americans. That may dissipate as weeks—and months—go on with persistent symptoms that inhibit quality of life and raise the specter of ongoing illness, however. And new data published by JAMA Network now indicate that this problem may be much more widespread than previously understood. Fully three quarters of patients continue to have symptoms 6 …

Where Can Pain Patients Go in the Midst of the Pandemic? One Urgent Care Center Has an Answer

JUCM News has reported on niche urgent care practices that focus on pediatrics, women’s health, and even mental health in the past. As the industry continues to prove there are no limits to its adaptability, other specialized practices continue to emerge. One, in Reno, NV addresses the needs of pain patients who may find their options for care dwindling as pain clinics suffer the same downturn as many other settings in the midst of the …

Update: Could Urgent Care Offer Another Mode of Preventing COVID-19 Spread?

The excitement and optimism that erupt with every approval of a COVID-19 vaccine are tempered by the problematic system of distributing and administering those vaccines. The public is further frustrated and fearful that there is no “cure” for the virus. A new method of inhibiting symptoms and preventing spread within members of the same household may be on the horizon, however, according to a report presented recently at the (virtual) annual meeting of the Conference …

Trinity Health Deepens Its Urgent Care Roots in Acquiring Premier Health

Trinity Health is known as one of the largest Catholic healthcare delivery systems in the U.S., with a track record of operating hospitals and urgent care centers successfully both clinically and operationally. The larger markets where it has urgent care centers, cities such as Detroit, Hartford, Philadelphia, and Tampa, however, tend to be saturated with a multitude of urgent care operators, hindering Trinity’s potential to grow its urgent care footprint. That may change now that …

Wedding Season Approaches. Could Your Urgent Care Team Be Greeting Guests with a COVID-19 Test?

It looks like it will be summer before the majority of Americans will have had a chance to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. By then, we’ll be nearing the end of celebration season, when families gather en masse to celebrate weddings, graduations, and other milestones. Last year’s galas were hampered by watered-down guest lists as responsible party planners sought to reduce the risk of hosting a super spreader event. Some urgent care centers see this challenge …

Will Growing Concern Over At-Home COVID-19 Testing Persuade More Patients to Visit Urgent Care?

Every iteration of COVID-19 tests has been celebrated as a significant step forward in curbing the pandemic and helping the country inch back closer to “normal” life. What if one variety of test proved to be a hindrance to that effort, though? The College of American Pathologists is the latest group to raise concerns that COVID-19 tests administered at home by patients or family members may not be as accurate as those conducted in the …