Practice

Workers Who Feel Unsafe Underperform and Ponder Quitting. Your Colleagues Could Be Among Them Multiple sources from within the United States medical establishment are sounding the alarm that workplaces across the country are not necessarily safe for healthcare workers. We’re not talking about the risks inherent in showing up for work in the midst of a deadly pandemic, either. First the American Hospital Association wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, imploring the AG …

Local media in the Ravenna, OH area was atwitter with news of an active shooter outside a VA medical center recently. The drama began when an employee arrived for work and noticed a man with a sawed-off shotgun kneeling and kissing a flagpole in front of the building. When the facility’s security officer was informed and went out to investigate, the kneeling man fired off a shot into the air, triggering calls to 911, a …

Healthcare professionals in general—with urgent care providers prominent among them—are prone to burn out due to the never-ending responsibility for their patients’ health while also having to keep up with the demands of coding, compliance, updates in practice standards imposed by the state and employers…. And certainly things have not been made better by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just how bad things have deteriorated was made evident in a report issued by Augmedix. Taking a review-article …

As JUCM News has reported recently, the dynamics of the federal test-to-treat program designed to ensure efficiency in helping patients newly diagnosed with COVID-19 have proved difficult to decipher. Though as first described it seemed to leave urgent care out of the running to participate, the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) clarified that urgent care centers who meet the relevant criteria may qualify to participate after …

Just a week after we shared the news that New York had become the 25th state to grant nurse practitioners full practice authority (FPA), Kansas has followed suit, tipping the scales to the majority of U.S. states now allowing NPs to deliver care without physician supervision. Proponents claim that broadening the types of healthcare providers authorized to provide care to patients independently also broadens access to healthcare—something that is badly needed in many communities across …

It’s not uncommon to see healthcare workers described as being “on the frontlines” of battling the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a militaristic analogy that hits closer to home than one might appreciate at first. According to an article just published by the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the potential for moral injury among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic is very similar to rates seen in military veterans who saw action in post-9/11 conflicts. Based on …

This will fall short of being a news flash, but physicians believe they spend too much time on documenting the care they provide during their time with patients. What is new (and possibly maddening), however, are data on time spent documenting outside of office hours and just how many physicians are dissatisfied with their EHR system. According to a new article in The Journal of the American Association, 35% of primary care physicians spend at …

Historically, there’s been a pretty sizeable pay gap between nurse practitioners and registered nurses. Given the role NPs play in urgent care, it’s an important consideration in evaluating the makeup and scheduling of the clinical team. There are signs that the gap could be shrinking in some states, however. According to the California Health Foundation, for example, median salary for an RN in the Golden State is $110,620 compared with $129,960 for NPs, a difference …

JUCM and other medical industry publications have been aware of growing concerns over provider shortages for several years now. While the pandemic has done nothing to improve the prospect of maintaining a steady flow of new clinicians in the coming years, it has increased the risk of urgent care centers losing nonclinical staff leaving their current positions. Presumably some have left healthcare-related jobs, possibly wearied by the stress of being on the frontlines of a …

When details of the “test to treat” initiative first emerged, it appeared that urgent care would once again be left out in the cold, unable to test patients for COVID-19 and then provide an immediate prescription and treatment on site; as originally detailed, it appeared that right was going to be conferred mainly to pharmacies. Then, as JUCM News readers know, the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response …