Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

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 …

Online Healthcare Reviews Offer an Earful of Feedback

In an analysis of 1 million online Yelp reviews across 138,605 U.S. healthcare providers, researchers identified patterns and words linked to patient satisfaction by leveraging machine learning. More than 46% of the reviews were negative (1-2 stars), and 50.1% were positive (4-5 stars). The mean (SD) rating was 3.1 stars, according to the study published in JAMA Network Open. Negative feedback often cited administrative problems (such as unfair payment and poor phone interactions), and positive …

Dispelling Physician Myths About the Patient Experience

Urgent Message: As “influencers in chief” charged with assuring the types of patient experiences that create patient loyalty and word-of-mouth, urgent care providers must understand the relationship between patient experience metrics, financial and clinical outcomes, care team coordination, and time spent with the patient. As value-based reimbursement becomes more prevalent in healthcare, providers are increasingly tasked with not only ensuring a great clinical outcome, but a superior patient experience, as well. Industry research supports this …

Login to JUCM