Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Heart Tests for Teens Could Bring in New Business—and Save Lives

Many urgent care centers have seen great success promoting their capabilities to care for young athletes, whether by offering sports physicals or letting it be known they’re able to evaluate and treat orthopedic injuries and concussions. While data on how many urgent care centers can perform electrocardiograms are scarce, offering heart tests for teenagers could be the next logical step forward, both in terms of establishing your business but also in uncovering potential life-threatening problems …

CDC Offers More Guidance on Antibiotic Use in Outpatient Settings

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been very active in pushing for more responsible antibiotic prescribing lately. Now they’ve issued more formal direction in the form of guidelines for antibiotic prescribing in outpatient settings, offering four stewardship “pillars” for prescribers to follow. CDC’s Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship, published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), recommends that outpatient facilities like urgent care centers demonstrate dedication to and accountability for optimizing …

Let the Community Know You Can Handle Eye Injuries

Whether you have a slit lamp or not, it’s likely you see a fair number of patients presenting with eye-related complaints. If you don’t, you may be stuck referring most of those patients out. If you do have a slit lamp—and staff properly trained to use it—you need to make sure athletes and youth coaches and administrators in your area know you can provide urgent eye care when needed. Roughly 120,000 people presented to EDs …

Urgent Care Centers: Switch to Digital Radiography or Lose Money

Urgent care operators who have adopted digital radiography (DR) will tell you it’s cheaper to maintain, less cumbersome to operate, and overall just more efficient to use than old-school analog x-ray systems. Now you can add Medicare to DR’s proponents—and they’re putting your money where their mouth is. Come 2017, Medicare will start reducing payments for exams performed on analog x-ray systems by 20%. Starting in 2018, urgent care centers using computed radiography (CR) will …

History Points to a Tough Flu Season This Year

Last year’s relatively mild flu season is likely indicative of two things: The vaccine produced was a good match for the prevalent strains of influenza, and this year’s season could be a doozy. The latter point would be borne out by history, which shows that “good” flu seasons are most often followed by “bad” flu seasons. That’s why the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions continues to hammer home the message that early vaccination is …

CDC, Pew Set Agenda for Antibiotic Prescriptions in Outpatient Settings

Reducing the rate of antibiotic resistance—let alone treating patients effectively and efficiently—means prescribing the right drug for the right pathogen at the outset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen that way, so the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Pew Charitable Trusts and other public health and medical experts to determine how much U.S. outpatient antibiotic use is inappropriate and to set national targets for improving antibiotic prescribing. They found that at least …

States Report First Flu Cases—and Multiple Deaths

The flu season has barely begun, with the peak not expected for at least 2 months, but there’s already an uptick in reported cases—and multiple deaths—around the country. Just last week, Nevada reported three fatalities and North Carolina reported its first of the 2016–2017 season. The grim news is an opportunity to stress to patients the importance of getting their annual flu shot early, as suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ask …

Should Reproductive-Age Women Receive Opioids?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that use of opioids in pregnant women can lead to birth defects, suggesting that alternatives for pain management of severe pain should be considered. In addition, more thought needs to be given about the wisdom of providing opioids to women who are of childbearing age and not using birth control. However, a study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that opioids are prescribed to over …

Millennials Not Alone in Dodging Flu Shots

We told you recently that fewer than half the patients in the “millennials” age group (roughly, those born between 1982 and 2004) are planning to get a flu shot this year—in spite of the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging patients in general to get vaccinated earlier than ever. Now a study by UPI indicates that U.S. parents who don’t get their kids immunized make that choice because they simply …

Urgent Care Providers, Be Aware: STDs Are More Common Than Ever

Despite ready availability of condoms—as well as information through providers, public outreach campaigns, and the ubiquitous internet, cases of sexually transmitted disease reported in the U.S. reached an all-time high last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Combined reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis totaled more than 1.8 million in 2015, according to the CDC’s annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report. Sadly, those numbers are probably lower than the true …

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