Urgent Care Association of America

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The Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) is a national organization that exists to support the approximately 15,000 urgent care centers in the United States. The UCAOA exists to encourage and facilitate the development and the success of urgent care centers and the urgent care industry and provides a forum for networking, continuing medical education (CME), and standardization and improvement of the industry.

1 Urgent Care Accreditation
2 National Urgent Care Convention
3 Other Conferences and Educational Activities
4 Urgent Care Fellowship Training
5 The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine
6 Sites of Some Members and Supporters of the Urgent Care Association of America
7 External links

[edit] Urgent Care Accreditation

The Urgent Care Association of America offers an on-site inspected accreditation process to allow centers to demonstrate a commitment to quality standards in urgent care. The process features an inspection by surveyors with many years of experience of inspecting healthcare institutions. The director of the accreditation process is Jack Shershow, MD. Dr. Shershow's previous appointments include, serving on the teaching faculty for Massachusetts General Hospital, Founder and President of one of the largest private medical groups in Massachusetts, Medical Director of two major hospitals (including Kings County Hospital Center, one of the largest hospitals in the USA), Associate Dean and Associate Provost of Downstate Medical Center (New York State's largest medical school). He served as a Surveyor and Senior Teaching Faculty for JCAHO for fifteen years; and he has participated in JCAHO survey preparation of over 100 hospitals. Dr. John "Jack" Shershow is also the owner of Gillette Urgent Care in Gillette, Wyoming.

[edit] National Urgent Care Convention

The 2006 UCAOA Convention was the largest (377 attendees) gathering of urgent care professionals in recent memory. The convention has talks and workshops for clinical staff (physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, etc.) and for administrative staff. The last National Urgent Care Convention was held in Lake Tahoe, Nevada on April 5-8, 2007. Four full-day pre-conferences covered 1) urgent care procedures, 2) adding occupational medicine to an urgent care center, 3) billing and coding in urgent care centers, and 4) how to start and urgent care center. Also in attendance were 88 vendor representatives from 52 sponsoring vendors. Vendors at the UCAOA Convention have included the American Medical Association, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Pfizer, Practice Velocity, Xpress Charts, T-System, Stix, DSI Pharmaceuticals and many others.

[edit] Other Conferences and Educational Activities

UCAOA performs joint educational activities in conjunction with the National Association of Occupational Health Professionals. UCAOA has worked with the National Headache Foundation to investigate better methods for serving patients suffering with headaches. In 2006, this collaboration led to landmark surveys of headache sufferers and urgent care physicians. The surveys found that headache suffers find the urgent care center to be a more efficient and effective method for the treatment of migraine headaches. In response to a request for more urgent care educational opportunities, on October 6-7, 2007, the Urgent Care Association of America launched its first annual urgent care fall mini-conference in Phoenix, AZ with two tracks: 1) How to Start an Urgent Care Center and 2) Advanced Coding for Urgent Care. The urgent care community responded enthusiastically with 125 attendees, evenly split between the two tracks.

[edit] Urgent Care Fellowship Training

The first ever fellowship in Urgent Care Medicine is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Family Medicine University Hospitals of Cleveland / Case School of Medicine, the Urgent Care Association of America, and University Primary and Specialty Care Practices, Inc. in Cleveland, OH. The Urgent Care Association of America partially funded this training program with a grant of $30,000. The first fellowship of its kind represents a specialized approach to providing the additional training necessary to serve in the fast-growing specialty of Urgent Care Medicine. The Association’s Academic Committee has taken great pains to identify core competencies unique to and/or essential to the practice of Urgent Care. Enrollment is open to graduates of accredited family practice or med/peds programs. More information can be obtained at UCAOA Fellowship Information.

[edit] The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

In October, 2006, the first issue of the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine (JUCM) will be released as the official publication of the Urgent Care Association of America. Lee Resnick, MD, will serve as the first Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. He is board certified in family medicine. Dr. Resnick serves as Medical Director of four urgent care centers in the University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland, OH and is the Director of the first Urgent Care Fellowship program in the country, as reviewed above. The Journal will be published in conjunction with Braveheart Publishing, which is led by Peter Murphy and Stuart Williams, who have experience as former publishers of such market-leading journals as JAMA, Medical Economics, American Medical News, and Patient Care.