10 Most Trusted Senior Care Service Providers 2022 Vol 2

The man confirmed that he neither visited the virus origin
area nor came into contact with any sick person during his
travel. He was discharged on the condition of home
isolation. On January 20, 2020, his tests of nasopharyngeal
and oropharyngeal swabs came positive for COVID-19.
Immediately, he was admitted into an airborne-isolation
unit and treated afterwards with utmost care, which saved
his life. As per the CDC's press release on January 21,
2021, the man was United States first reported COVID-19
case.
The man was one of the twenty-eight million patients who
visited such UCC's in the year 2020. Out of those, more
than half were COVID-19 patients. In fact, over the last two
years, UCC's became the preferred 'go-to' choice for
patients who needed urgent, affordable, and episodic
COVID-19 care. This influx of patients showed the urgent
care's growing importance in our daily healthcare space.
Impact of Urgent Care:
According to the Urgent Care Association's (UCA, founded
in 2004) estimate, there are more than 10,000 UCC's across
the United States. From large urban areas to small rural
communities, UCC's are located in every area. Each year,
these UCC's gives treatments to more than 160 million
patients with mostly lower acuity. But due to their on-site
labs and x-ray capabilities, they are also able to treat
patients with higher level of acuity. Also, UCA works in
close collaborations with Convenient Care Association
(CCA), which is a representative body of 3,300 retail health
clinics spread across the States. Together, they provide high
degree of accessible healthcare to the patients from every
stratum of society.
To help urgent care industry in the areas of research,
technological upgrades, education, training, and honing
leadership in clinical practices management, there is urgent
care foundation (UCF), which is an affiliate of UCA. Both
UCF and UCA worked hard in bringing innovation and
improvement in delivering advanced healthcare models to
the industry. The emergency preparedness initiative
launched during the hurricane Harvey relief efforts, is
expanded over the years and is now being used to support
industry during these hard times. The pandemic emergency
fund was provided to educate and train clinicians to provide
better care to novel coronavirus affected patients.
All these efforts brought fruit when UCC's are needed the
most. As the third wave of COVID-19 is ravaging across
the States, Americans are finding UCC's as their best bet.
When it comes to walking in straight and getting tested for
COVID-19 without an appointment, then UCC is the only
option available. According to a mobile app Solv, this year,
UCC's saw a 50% spike in number of patient's online and
in-person bookings. Google search for UCC's is at a neverbefore-seen
levels.
UCC's plays a unique role in US's healthcare arena. They
are the only standalone medical care units available for
patients without any prior appointment. Many of them are
the only healthcare providers in their areas. And as opposed
to limited opening hours of regular primary clinics, UCC's
are open for longer periods. Some are even open for 24
hours a day, seven days a week even on weekends and
holidays.
Accessible Healthcare: Future Essential
Other reasons for UCC sudden upheaval are their adopting
of advanced technologies faster than their counterparts. For
example, faced with long queues of people to get tested for
COVID-19, CityMD, New York's largest UCC adopted an
urgent-care-specific software solution for queuing and
texting. And the long queues blocking the city roads
disappeared overnight.
Many of the UCC's are now leveraging enhanced digital
patient engagement systems. From check-ins to payments,
these systems are designed to manage high patient volumes
in short times, optimizing center's ability to handle high
demands of testing.
Simply, they are shortening their wait times, streamlining
their workflow, and improving patient's experience. By
enhancing efficiency and functioning, UCC's are evolving
into an essential entity of the healthcare continuum.
Anish Miller
October 2022|42|www.insightscare.com