Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Ransomware Attacks Doubled in Just 5 Years. Are Your Preventive Measures Keeping Pace?

If it seems like you’ve been reading more than ever about ransomware attacks in JUCM News and elsewhere, there’s a good reason: A new study released by JAMA Health Forum reveals that the annual number of healthcare ransomware attacks doubled over a 5-year period, from 43 attacks in 2016 to 91 in 2021. In total, 342 attacks exposed the personal health information of nearly 42 million patients. While hospitals were the most likely targets, statistically, …

Renewed Interest in Ketamine Could Drive Patients Your Way—Be Prepared

A new wave of specialty clinics is stoking renewed interest from mainstream media and patients in the purported benefits, as well as the risks, of ketamine to treat select mental health issues. Medpage Today published an article online detailing how some providers—one of whom holds a medical license in 45 states—have established booming online “practices” devoted exclusively to facilitating access to ketamine. While ketamine has been used successfully in treating depression and anxiety, the Food …

Tripledemic Update: Watch Out for More COVID—Thanks to a New Variant—as Flu and RSV Recede

The fall and winter months have seen nearly constantly fluctuations in rates of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza. Reports from around the country show this is unlikely to change anytime soon. WKRC TV aired a story noting that while flu and RSV have been declining in the Cincinnati area, COVID has had a resurgence that is pushing an ever-growing number of patients to not only area hospitals, but also urgent care centers. Data from …

Like PA’s, Urgent Care NP’s Earn Relatively More Than Peers in Other Settings

Not too long ago, we reported that physician assistants practicing in urgent care are among the most well-compensated PAs in the U.S. healthcare workforce. Now, with the release of more data in the 2022 Advanced Practice Provider Compensation and Productivity Survey as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review from SullivanCotter, we can tell you that while nurse practitioners don’t rank quite as high as PAs compared with their peers in other settings (sixth vs third, respectively), …

Warnings of a Seasonal Bump in Respiratory Infections Are Coming to Fruition—with More to Follow

As JUCM News readers know, public health officials and infectious disease specialists warned that holiday gatherings would likely prove to be fertile breeding grounds for COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza. Just a couple of days into the new year, Alabama is the first state to announce that hospitalizations for COVID-19 started climbing shortly after Thanksgiving, to the point that they had essentially doubled (from 264 to 530) by New Year’s Day. Given that the …

North of the Border, Pharmacists Are Creeping Closer to Practicing Medicine

In a development that is sure to have implications in the United States healthcare marketplace, Ontario became the latest province in Canada to allow pharmacists to diagnose and prescribe medication for a finite list of acute ailments. According to a report from the CBC, it’s the second-to-last province to do so, with British Columbia being the only holdout at present. Only a handful of U.S. states have opted to let pharmacists “test and treat” a …

In Buffalo, a Validation of the Business of Urgent Care

When Buffalo Business First scanned the business community to determine its 2022 Business of the Year, they found no entity more deserving than Focus Urgent Care, a four-location operation founded by Greg Daniel, MD, MBA under the umbrella of his own Nidus Development company. It’s an especially striking achievement in that Daniel only opened Focus this past summer, occupying spaces previously run by WNY Immediate Care. Recognizing that certain needs were going unmet in Buffalo …

New Data Present a Different View of How Helpful ARB’s Are—or Aren’t—with COVID

Last spring, published research suggested angiotensin receptor blockers could lower the risk for ventilation and vasopressors in men with COVID-19. Just this week, however, an article released by the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that ARBs do not improve outcomes in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The trial included 787 patients at 17 hospitals in Australia and India and covered the period from May 2020 to November 2021. The vast majority of patients (n=778), …

Be Prepared—Holiday Gatherings Are Likely to Beget a Deluge of Viral Infections (and More)

Health systems expect to see sharp increases in patients presenting with symptoms of multiple respiratory infections in the coming days and weeks. Experts interviewed for a report on CNN suggest that hospitals already straining to keep up with rates of respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 could be hit with a wave of patients newly infected after gathering with family and friends over the winter holidays. Ben Leach, a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia …

Vaccine-Hesitant Urgent Care Workers May Need Proper—and Personal—Motivation

Urgent care operators (and all healthcare employers) may struggle at times to ensure their teams meet organizational goals for vaccination compliance. Even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, some healthcare workers (HCWs) flat out refused to get vaccinated. Besides putting themselves and those around them at risk, such individuals provided a poor example for patients who may have been on the fence about getting the shot. New research published in the Journal of Occupational …