Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Highlights From SERUCA 2025: AI, Burnout, and The New Front Line of Care

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, President of Urgent Care Consultants and Senior Editor of JUCM. The Southeast Regional Urgent Care Association (SERUCA) 2025 conference, held November 14–15, 2025, in New Orleans, focused on urgent care’s most pressing challenges: technology, workforce well-being, and clinical quality through stewardship. This article highlights key takeaways for operators, vendors, and clinicians. Promoting Clinical Excellence Through Stewardship Stewardship was a recurring theme. In a session on antibiotic use, Steven Goldberg, MD, …

Will AI Discharge Summaries Help To Reduce Burnout?

AI-generated reports using large language models (LLMs) seem inevitable in healthcare, especially when it comes to the time-consuming task of writing up patient discharge summaries, a commentary post in JAMA Internal Medicine states. Right now, the responsibility of compiling summaries is one of the many administrative burdens leading to burnout among clinicians, and leveraging LLM tools could reduce that burden if done thoughtfully and with appropriate data integration. In a related article, researchers found no …

AMA: Burnout Levels Slowly Improving for Physicians

The percentage of physicians experiencing at least 1 symptom of burnout has fallen below 50% for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA’s 2023 annual survey, which included more than 12,400 physicians from 31 states, revealed a slow decline in burnout from a peak of 62.8% in 2021. Reported burnout levels fell to 53% in 2022 and further decreased to 48.2% in the most recent …

CDC Releases Guide For Reducing Burnout

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released a guide meant to assist hospitals and provider organizations in reducing healthcare worker burnout. It offers step-by-step organizational-level actions that take into account the time, cost, and staff requirements necessary to implement new programs. CDC/NIOSH is hosting a webinar series next month to offer more insight on the application of the guide’s suggestions. The pilot-tested actions …

Emergency Medicine Workers Emotionally Exhausted

A recent study of emergency medicine healthcare workers at a large urban medical center investigated the link between sleep disturbance, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study found that poor sleep quality increased the likelihood of elevated emotional exhaustion by 2.45 times, and insomnia symptoms were also associated with a more than doubling of emotional exhaustion. The research was conducted between November 2020 and January 2022, involving 126 workers who completed …

Abstracts in Urgent Care – December 2022

Ivan Koay MBChB, MRCS, FRNZCUC, MD Applying the Ottawa Ankle Rule to Pediatric Patients Take-home point: Application of the Ottawa Ankle Rule (OAR) limits unnecessary imaging in children without missing clinically relevant fractures. Citation: de Almeida S, Rios J, Lima S, et al. Applying the Ottawa Ankle Rule in a pediatric emergency department. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2022;38(3):e1123-e1126. Relevance: Ankles fractures in children are common.Use of the OAR, a simple clinical decision rule, by UC providers …

Flexibility on Management’s Part May Help Stave Off Burnout in Providers

Urgent care, by nature, is a fast-paced practice setting; patients come to your practice because they don’t feel like they can wait to see a primary care provider, after all. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the pace can take its toll, especially on the clinical staff. Providers can reach the point of burnout if they’re not careful. Now, Practice Velocity has a few suggestions that might help, put forth in a blog …

Optimizing EHR Functions May Help Prevent Physician Burnout

Long hours, an overabundance of bureaucratic tasks, and perceived lack of respect from coworkers and administrators are the perfect recipe for physician burnout, if Medscape’s 2018 Physician Burnout and Depression Report is to be believed. Another source cited—increasing reliance on electronic health records—may also be the gateway to reducing the risk for burnout, however, according to a new article published online by Advisory Board. The difference between an EHR’s potential to be a burden or …

Strategies for Managing Employee Burnout

Urgent message: Statistics indicate there is an epidemic of mental, physical, and emotional burnout of employees in the United States, painting a troubling picture that urgent care operators must proactively manage in order to assure continued patient satisfaction. Many of us have been there: getting out of bed in the morning feels like a monumental task. The thought of another work day evokes an exasperated sigh. Previously productive shifts give way to distracted clock-watching. Patience …

Recognizing and Preventing Provider Burnout in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Urgent care demands that providers meet goals for fast patient turnaround and positive patient experiences, which when combined with tight staffing makes recognizing and preventing provider burnout a priority for urgent care providers. It’s been said that providers are the lifeblood of any healthcare organization. Indeed, they’re the collective engines that make everything go, such that their focused engagement and dedicated patient care are critical for organizational success. But that dedication often leaves …

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