Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Triage Should Determine Level of Care, Not Arrival Location

In an opinion article published in Academic Emergency Medicine, an emergency medicine professor at the University of Virginia notes that emergency departments (EDs) have become the default destination for nearly all acute, unscheduled care, even when patients do not require emergency-level services. This approach contributes to overcrowding, inefficient resource use, and care delays for patients with life-threatening conditions. The author, R. Andrew Taylor, MD, MHS, proposes a conceptual engineering framework to redefine emergency care according …

Watch For Unique ‘Tick Bomb’ Bite Pattern

Clinicians might keep an eye out for an unusual dermatologic presentation that is known as a “tick bomb.” This unique tick bite pattern occurs when a person encounters a cluster of newly hatched larval ticks, potentially resulting in hundreds or thousands of tiny insects attaching to the skin at once and presenting as a collection of small red bites concentrated in an area on the skin, according to an analysis in MedPage Today that includes …

Fasting Before Lab Testing Should Be More Nuanced: Study

Fasting longer than 12 hours before a lab test generally does not provide an advantage over fasting for 8–12 hours, according to new research. A large study of routine outpatient laboratory testing suggests that most tests are minimally affected by the length of time that the patient spends fasting beforehand, potentially changing perspectives on uniform fasting requirements. As published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed 9.8 million test results from 101,148 adults using laboratory data …

Addressing Congenital Syphilis With Point-of-Care Testing in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Urgent care centers can help prevent congenital syphilis by screening pregnant patients lacking prenatal records, confirming reactive point-of-care results, and administering penicillin when follow-up is uncertain. Amir Reza Tehrani, BS; Glenn E. Harnett, MD; Jeffrey D. Klausner, MD, MPH Keywords: syphilis screening; congenital syphilis; point-of-care testing; sexually transmitted infections; pregnant patients; urgent care; rapid diagnostics Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this review is to use clinical, operational, and economic evidence to support integrating …

More Kids Are Using GLP-1 Drugs For Obesity

Use of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists among U.S. children with obesity is increasing rapidly. A national analysis from NYU Langone Health published in Pediatrics found that among children ages 8–11 with obesity and without diabetes, GLP-1 prescribing was 310 times higher in 2026 than it was in 2019 (when the drugs first began reaching the market), with 20,282 children in this age group receiving these medications during the study period. Most treated children had …

Is Myopia a Disease? Medical Groups Might See It That Way

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently agreed with the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) that myopia is an increasing public health concern warranting improved screening in children and prevention efforts, according to a news release from the AAO. Although myopia is not currently considered a disease by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, insurers, or public health programs, the AMA’s support is clear evidence that the disease-model view of myopia has grown beyond the …

Nirsevimab May Help Reduce Antibiotic Prescribing for Newborns and Infants

Researchers examining electronic health record data found nirsevimab administration was associated with reduced antibiotic prescribing among infants during their first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season, as published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Among 15,341 eligible infants from 32 pediatric practices in the study, 7,413 (48.3%) received nirsevimab. At 6 months, nirsevimab was associated with a 14.4% reduction in antibiotic prescribing for outpatient acute respiratory tract infections and a 40.3% reduction for outpatient bronchiolitis. Antibiotic prescribing associated …

Urgent Care Encounters Provide Clues For Flu Vaccine Effectiveness

The 2024–2025 influenza season was characterized as having high severity, and in research published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, researchers found flu shots provided protection not just against hospitalization but also against emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) visits during that time. They evaluated influenza vaccine effectiveness using data from 7 healthcare systems in 8 states across 102,854 ED/urgent care visits among children and 233,411 visits among adults. Overall, vaccination was 54% effective against …

Rise In Vibrio Vulnificus Deaths Prompts Public Health Warnings

State health departments are reporting an increase in severe Vibrio vulnificus infections along the Gulf Coast in recent weeks with the highest concern currently centered around Louisiana, which has recorded 9 confirmed cases for the year so far. All 9 patients were hospitalized, and 5 have died. Louisiana normally averages about 7 cases and 1 death per year, so the case counts and deaths have prompted public warnings for consumers to stay out of the …

Heart Failure Definition Gets A Makeover

A new international expert consensus document from leading cardiology groups offers an update on the definition of heart failure, taking into consideration advances in diagnosis and clinical understanding of the disease, as published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. While the statement isn’t a clinical practice guideline—and does not include treatment recommendations—it aims to clarify the definition and adopt it universally. For urgent care clinicians, the most relevant point is that heart …

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