Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Medication Kiosks Can Lead To Better Antibiotic Stewardship

A study of urgent care centers published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases found that medication-dispensing kiosks, combined with an antimicrobial stewardship program, could be useful to support antibiotic stewardship principles. In late 2019, a Florida health system installed medication kiosks in 20 of its urgent care centers, providing prepackaged antibiotics corresponding to guideline-supported antibiotic courses. Instead of sending a patient’s prescription to a community pharmacy, for example, the urgent care clinician could send the electronic …

Physicians May Drift Over Time When It Comes to Antibiotic Prescribing

A national study of 31,800 primary care physicians from internal medicine and family medicine residency programs found a connection between residency ratings and antibiotic prescribing during the physicians’ first 5 years of practice. In this study, the competency scores included Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Milestone ratings across 6 core competency areas: patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, communication skills, systems-based practice, and practice-based learning. Physicians with higher competency ratings near the end of their …

Urgent Care Antibiotic Stewardship Produces Positive Results

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in urgent care settings appear to produce practice improvement, according to a new systematic review published in Cureus. Researchers evaluated literature reporting on ASPs specifically in urgent care settings and found that 11 of 12 completed studies demonstrated reduced antimicrobial prescribing or improved appropriateness in prescribing patterns among clinicians. Education and guideline-based strategies produced some of the largest improvements. For example, an intervention that used clinical pathway pocket-card algorithms to guide …

Updated Antibiotic Stewardship Framework Calls For Scalability

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updated guidance on the recommended features of antibiotic stewardship programs in outpatient settings. The agency says the updates reflect changes in today’s healthcare system environment, particularly with consideration for the increasing number of outpatient practices that are now under larger health system ownership. According to CDC, the new Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship Programs builds on its original 2016 framework to reflect the latest …

There’s Room to Improve Antibiotic Prescribing for Acute Sinusitis

Researchers found that antibiotic prescribing frequently exceeded guideline recommendations in a study of 1,000 ambulatory visits for acute sinusitis in 2024 across several locations of the Mayo Clinic health system, as published in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology. Although only 67.6% of the encounters met criteria for antibiotic treatment, 89.2% of encounters resulted in an antibiotic prescription. Urgent care represented one-quarter of the study’s 1,000 encounters (254 visits) and 68.5% of those urgent care encounters …

Upper Respiratory Visits Associated With Inappropriate Antibiotics

Despite ongoing education and stewardship programs, inappropriate antibiotic prescribing is still common in high-income countries, especially for respiratory illnesses. A review of 12 observational studies from primary care settings in the United States, Europe, and Asia between 2021 and 2025, published in Cureus, found that when analyzing prescribing patterns by category, respiratory tract visits contributed to the largest overall share of inappropriate prescriptions—even when their rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing was not the highest. Reported …

Pediatric Plantar Puncture Wound Through Rubber-Soled Footwear: A Case Report Highlighting Antibiotic Stewardship in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Low-risk plantar puncture wounds in healthy children can be safely managed without antibiotics. Parents should receive instructions for return precautions. Adam Brandon Bondoc, MD Keywords: plantar puncture wound; pediatric puncture wound; rubber-soled footwear; pseudomonas aeruginosa; antibiotic stewardship; foreign body risk Abstract Introduction: Puncture wounds that occur through rubber-soled footwear increase the risk of infection from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Prophylactic oral fluoroquinolones are frequently provided to adults for high-risk injuries. However, pediatric care is complicated …

An Evaluation of Unnecessary Prophylactic Antibiotics For Clean Lacerations

Urgent Message: Prophylactic antibiotic prescribing for patients with clean lacerations is a common but unnecessary practice. Rates of prescribing did not differ based on type of provider or physician specialty in this study of 20 urgent care centers. Michael Smart, PhD; Jennifer Bush, MSN, APRN, FNP-C/ENP-C Keywords: antimicrobial stewardship; prophylactic antibiotics; laceration repair; urgent care Abstract Background: Oral prophylactic antibiotics for clean lacerations that require suture repair are commonly prescribed when they are unneeded. We …

POC Viral Testing and Stewardship Reduces Antibiotic Prescribing in UC

Researchers found combining a 15-pathogen point-of-care (POC) respiratory viral panel with an antimicrobial stewardship intervention program resulted in reduced antibiotic prescribing in an urgent care setting in Louisiana, as published in Microbiology Spectrum. Alongside the stewardship program—which included patient education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MITIGATE tool kit—the POC panel was used for 296 adult patients, and results were compared with 600 seasonally matched historical controls. Overall antibiotic prescribing decreased from 38.2% …

UCCOP, CUCM Speak Out Against ‘Urgent Care Kits’

In a new statement, the Urgent Care College of Physicians (UCCOP) and the College of Urgent Care Medicine (CUCM) make a strong stand against the development, distribution and promotion of what are being marketed online as “urgent care kits.” The kits typically include antibiotics, steroids, or other prescription medications packaged for unsupervised use by consumers at home. They are often advertised as a way for families to be prepared for “life’s unexpected moments,” which suggests …

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