Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care May Become a Likely Destination for Transgender Patients

Estimates of the number of transgender people in the United States range from just 0.3% to 0.6% of the population. Still, that means up to 1.4 million patients across the country may identify as transgendered. Data show they experience a disproportionate rate of health complications, sometimes due to hesitance to seek care for fear of being discriminated against (or even refused treatment in extreme cases). Given this reluctance to establish primary healthcare relationships, urgent care …

Urgent Care Clinical Trials Efforts Are Expanding

We’ve told you here that urgent care-specific clinical trials will both raise the profile and perceived legitimacy of this setting and result in better patient care. Now there’s a new opportunity for urgent care operators to take part in those efforts. Urgent Care Clinical Trials, an investigative site network geared specifically for the urgent care industry, is recruiting urgent care partners in the Dallas and Fort Worth, TX areas to help conduct clinical trials and …

Start Priming the Pump for Flu Shot Programs

It may seem early, but September is actually the ideal time to start promoting influenza immunization programs in your urgent care center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all patients 6-months-old and above receive a flu shot by the end of October. In addition to traditional promotional channels like local advertising and social media, don’t forget the value of good old-fashioned human contact; let patients who come in for everyday complaints that …

Check Your Clinic for OTC Soaps Purported to be ‘Antibacterial’

Urgent care operators that offer over-the-counter soaps marked as “antibacterial” in restrooms or other public areas should be aware that such products can no longer be marketed in the U.S., thanks to a new ruling by the Food and Drug Administration. Sharp-eyed (and certainly germaphobic) patients and other visitors to your urgent care center may take umbrage with signage or containers making claims that the soaps are antibacterial. The FDA made the decision after a …

Back-to-School Shouldn’t Mean Back Pain

If parents bring in young children complaining of acute back pain, try taking a history that might be just a little more detailed than usual before ordering expensive images or referring. Actually, focusing on one specific question might reveal the answer: Did the onset of pain coincide with the start of the school year? If the answer is “yes,” ask for a detailed list of what goes into the child’s backpack every morning, and how …

Urgent Care Workflows Defy Dire Headlines for Other Settings

Recent headlines make the problem crystal clear—“For Each Hour of Clinical Time, Docs Spend 2 on Desk Work” from MedPage Today is a good example—but they don’t tell the whole story, at least where urgent care is concerned. The current hubbub stems from a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine that reveals physicians in ambulatory care settings spend almost 2 hours on clerical tasks for every single hour they spend with patients. Even in …

Making Urgent Care Child-Friendly Can ‘Bear’ New Patients—and Profits

News flash: Some kids don’t like to go to the doctor. Which means parents sometimes have to decide between dragging an unwilling child into your clinic and weighing whether their child’s symptoms really do merit immediate attention. Neither outcome is optimal. An urgent care clinic in Bellmore, NY has hit on an inspired way to make the doctor’s office a little less intimidating, though. Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care recently invited families to bring their child …

Think Twice Before Prescribing Opioids in the Urgent Care Center

Urgent care clinicians practice where the rubber meets the road—treating patients who feel so bad they cannot wait to be seen by their primary care physician. The downside is that physicians often don’t know patients well—which means they need to be vigilant for opioid addicts and “patients” who are actually looking to obtain drugs so they can sell them for their own profit. This has given birth to a movement seeking to lower prescribing rates …

NEJM: Three Trends Fueling Growth of Telemedicine

Urgent care centers that are dipping a toe into the telehealth pool may be helping to set standards that will become common practice in years to come. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine predicts that telehealth will continue to grow, becoming more prevalent in teaching hospitals and opening the door for better chronic disease management. The article identifies three trends fueling its growth: Transformation from an application that increases access to …

Urgent Care Needs to Prepare for Zika Visits

We told you earlier that residents of Miami have been infected with Zika virus transmitted by local mosquitos, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to dispatch an emergency response team and revise its guidance on testing and prevention. Regardless of how likely or unlikely further domestic exposure may be, media attention and summer travel plans are likely to drive more patients with concerns about Zika to urgent centers. As such, operators are advised …

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