Urgent Care: What Is It and When Should You Seek It?

 

Our body consists of many highly sophisticated systems, which are sometimes prone to dysfunction. Even the fittest person can face a sudden illness or accident needing immediate help. When such a situation presents itself before you or any of your loved ones, then the search for the required medical help can seem overwhelming especially due to the panic situation. This is where some special medical facilities called urgent care come into play.

 

What is Urgent Care?

 

Urgent care services are medical facilities which are most appropriate to deal with ailments or illnesses which are not life-threatening but still too urgent to wait for medical assistance till another day. It is basically ambulatory care that is dedicated to making medical aid available to the target patient wherever it is required. It saves you from wastage of precious time and anxiety involved during the transportation of the patient.

Urgent Care Near me

How are urgent care services different from Emergency rooms (ERs)?

 

It is very different from the traditional emergency rooms, both in its specialties and functioning and it is very crucial that you be able to decide which one will be right in a given situation. While it is recommended in cases where the injury or medical issue is not much critical, emergency rooms are most suitable for life-threatening health issues where the patient's condition is very critical. The injuries or illnesses which require more advanced equipment or need cesarean operations are generally out of the scope of urgent care facilities and will need the involvement of an emergency room. Urgent care services, however, have their own benefits over emergency rooms. First of all, hospitals and emergency rooms have grown very busy these days and if you may need to wait for hours before your turn comes. Secondly, emergency rooms are very expensive and you may end up paying a large sum of money to small medical assistance. Another reason why you shouldn't go to an emergency room for small complications is that there are many patients in a hospital who actually need immediate treatment and you will only be bothering the often too busy doctors with your trifles.

 

When do you need urgent care?

 

As has already been discussed above, these facilities should be called only for mild to moderate medical issues which are not much serious or fatal. Some of the situations where urgent care can provide the best solution are:

 

Mild accidents and falls

Cuts that are not much deeper and the bleeding is not much

Mild to moderate breathing difficulties due to asthma

Fever, common cold, or flu

Minor bone fractures in fingers or toes

Sprains and strains

Vomiting, diarrhea, or dehydration

Infections pertaining to skin, eye, or ear

General facilities provided by care services

 

Open for extended hours

Professional doctors, physician, and medical staff assistance

X-ray and lab testing in general

Ambulances and other mobile medical facilities

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Urgent Care And Why The Services Are Beneficial

 Urgent care centers are set up to offer urgent assistance to patients with injuries or illnesses that are not life threatening, but still cannot wait till the next day to get primary care from a doctor. The facilities come in handy, especially when primary care physicians are closed or where access to quality healthcare facilities is limited.

 

It is important to remember that urgent care does not substitute emergency care. There are situations that are considered an emergency and as such they should be treated by checking the patient to the ER in a well-equipped facility because they can endanger the life or permanently impair the patient. Deep knife wound, seizures, severe chest pains and pregnancy related problems and many others are all serious and considered an emergency. Urgent care facilities may not be able to handle such, but will handle less serious medical situations like fever, flu, diarrhea, vomiting, sprains and strains, falls, moderate back pains, eye irritation and such irritating but not life threatening situations.

 

The benefits

 

1. Urgent care clinics require no appointment and hence patients can walk in to get treatment they need. This is a major benefit, especially considering that you can be faced with sudden health issues that leave you very concerned such that you just can't wait.

 

2. They offer services at very flexible hours. The urgent care service providers will usually remain open during weekdays and weekends and some even remain open round the clock just so you can access the services as they arise. The flexible hours offer lots of convenience, especially for patients who have busy schedules; you can check into the center even after having your dinner.

 

3. They offer peace of mind because you know that you can get the medical assistance that you need without necessarily waiting too long. The waiting time at an ER department can be a little longer considering how serious, some of the received cases can be. But because the urgent care clinics only deal with minor health issues, there are usually no long lines to deal with and you can get treated as soon as you get there so you spend very little time at the clinic.

Family practice clinic

4. The centers can come complete with lab testing and X-ray services so that diagnosis for patients is made faster. You might also be very lucky to get a facility that can refill your prescription saving you the trip to your healthcare provider when the time is not convenient enough.

 

5. They offer the services are very reasonable costs. This means that you can have your health concerns settled on a price that you can afford.

 

A good urgent care center should offer the necessary services for the medical situations that are not life threatening. The best facilities will attend to adult and also pediatric patients and should have the necessary medical equipment like X-ray machines so you do not end up being sent to another place for such services. In essence, an urgent care clinic should offer nothing short of convenience.

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RESEARCHERS WARN AGAINST HOMEMADE SUNSCREEN

Recent years have seen a rise in do-it-yourself care products, from deodorant to soap and toothpaste. Recipes for homemade sunscreen are some of the most popular among social media users. However, a new study warns that homemade sunscreen may offer no protection against ultraviolets.

A quick Google search for the term “homemade sunscreen” will list about 9,750,000 results. Many are recipes for “natural,” “simple,” and “nontoxic” do-it-yourself (DIY) products.

The allure of DIY sunscreen is rooted in multiple factors, such as potentially lower costs and the belief that an all-natural cream made with handpicked ingredients is more healthful than a mass-produced sunscreen with an ingredient list that features chemicals with illegible names.

However, a new study warns that we shouldn’t trust the sunscreen recipes that we find online to yield a product that offers the protection we need against sunburn.

The study comes from a team of researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, in Columbus, OH, and the Brooks College of Health at the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville. Its findings will appear in the journal Health Communication.

“The internet is a great place for families to go to for recipe inspiration and arts and crafts projects, but not necessarily for making their own safety-related things,” warns study co-author Lara McKenzie, Ph.D.

Homemade sunscreen is ‘risky’

Since social media are a top source, worldwide, when it comes to DIY products, the researchers turned their attention to one such website: Pinterest, a social platform that allows users to display moodboard-like digital collections of their interests.

Some data suggest that Pinterest is the fourth most popular social media platform in the United States, where the website had an estimated 77.4 million users in 2018.

In the current study, the researchers looked at how Pinterest users described and rated various recipes for homemade sunscreen. According to the researchers, this is the first ever study to look at the portrayal of DIY sunscreen on Pinterest.

They found that most — 95.2%, to be exact — of the saved posts (called “pins”) regarding DIY sunscreen suggested that the homemade products were effective, and 68.3% of the pins promoted DIY sunscreens that, the researchers say, did not ensure appropriate protection against ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Moreover, the team noted that a third of the posts featuring recipes for homemade sunscreen claimed specific sun protection factor — rendered on commercial packaging as “SPF” — rankings, of anywhere from SPF 2–50.

However, the researchers warn that such claims can be misleading, since the ingredients featured in those recipes actually offer minimal protection against UV radiation.

Yet many people appear to show keen interest in these recipes pinned on Pinterest, with users saving each such pin, on average, as many as 808 times. One specific DIY sunscreen pin was saved over 21,700 times, the team saw.

In their study paper, the investigators write that “[s]ocial media has become a powerful tool for sharing health information, yet it becomes dangerous when the information being shared isn’t accurate or complete.”

This also applies when people take the information regarding homemade sunscreens for granted. The researchers explain that specialists do not test such products, and for this reason, they may not provide any protection against UV rays at all.

“Homemade sunscreen products are risky because they are not regulated or tested for efficacy like commercial sunscreens. When you make it yourself, you don’t know if it’s safe or effective.”

Lara McKenzie, Ph.D.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) note that having “a history of sunburns, especially early in life,” can increase the risk of developing skin cancer. Thus, it is important to wear sunscreen that is tested and proven to be effective, from childhood onward, whenever exposed to strong sun.

Currently, the American Academy of Dermatology recommend using sunscreen that offers broad-spectrum protection — that is, protection against both UVA and UVB rays. It should also be SPF 30 or higher and water-resistant. Read more..

 

URGENT CARE VS. THE EMERGENCY ROOM: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Knowing where to go after an illness or accident can sometimes be tricky, especially when your primary care doctor is booked — or when you need help after hours.

Do you head to an urgent care clinic? Or is the situation severe enough to go to the emergency department?

Each option has its place, says Brad Uren, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Michigan Medicine.

Choosing one requires self-evaluation. A sinus infection, after all, needn’t prompt a trip to the hospital.

“There’s an important distinction between a minor injury or complaint and a major injury that requires a whole medical team working together,” says Uren.

He spoke about the two types of care and how to pick the right one.

Choosing between urgent care and the hospital

Urgent care can fill in for your regular doctor: The stand-alone clinics, which often are open evenings and weekends, “provide the sorts of routine injury treatment and acute medical care that a primary physician would typically perform in their office,” Uren says. That includes treating cold and flu cases, earaches, sprained ankles and minor cuts that require stitches. Urgent care clinics usually lack an operating room but may offer X-rays and simple lab tests.

Hospitals are ready for almost anything: Although equipped to treat minor injuries or sickness, emergency departments are best suited for the bigger stuff. “They can generally respond to just about any emergency within the capabilities of that hospital — 24/7,” Uren says. Among these offerings: radiology labs, ultrasounds, CAT scans and MRIs, operating rooms and access to doctors of varying expertise across medical disciplines. Beds are available if a patient needs to stay over.

Wait times will vary: Urgent care clinics might be sparsely staffed (with only a doctor and a nurse practitioner or physician assistant clocked in), but the lower acuity, or sickness, of patients means that most can be seen quickly. An emergency department admits patients using a system known as triage, which gives priority to serious cases. “If you’re in need of immediate, lifesaving care, you will absolutely receive it,” Uren says. A stroke patient, for example, would take priority over someone with a sore throat.

Costs will differ, too: Most people face a higher copay for emergency room visits compared with an urgent care consultation. So, beyond the prospect of a longer wait in a hospital, those with illnesses that aren’t life-threatening might choose the latter setting for fiscal reasons. “In many cases, insurance companies have stratified copays that make emergency department visits more expensive,” says Uren. “It is worth considering if your concern can be addressed at a lower, and cheaper, level of care.” Read more..