Urgent care centers provide treatment for the non-life threatening illnesses and injuries that occur on a day-to-day basis. They are equipped to serve the entire family including children and can handle a variety of conditions ranging from sinusitis and pneumonia to lacerations and fractures. Generally, most urgent care centers are open seven days a week with hours extending into the evening. Additionally, patients seeking medical attention or advice should not have to make appointments at urgent care centers.

The urgent care center is a great option if you have an urgent medical condition that you feel needs immediate attention at that time. If your family doctor is neither available nor equipped to handle the situation, urgent care might be a suitable alternative. With the majority of the urgent care doctors having extensive emergency room experience, urgent care centers work closely with patients to ensure that all appropriate records are transferred to local family physician.

There are several main differences between urgent care centers and the emergency room. Emergency rooms are staffed 24 hours a day and are designed to treat patients suffering from life threatening injuries or serious illnesses. In contrast, urgent care centers are designed to lighten the load on local emergency rooms by treating non-life threatening injuries (lacerations, mild fractures, etc.) and illnesses (earaches, influenza, rashes, etc.) in a patient-friendly environment.

The urgent care center should be used for any non-life threatening medical illness or injury that you deem urgent. It is best to receive direct attention rather than waiting hours, days or weeks to be seen. Since most urgent care centers have extended evening hours beyond those of family doctors, they are excellent options for late day, evening and weekend medical problems.

The intent of the certification process is to provide assurance to the public that a certified medical specialist has successfully completed an approved educational program and an evaluation, including an examination designed to assess the knowledge, experience and skills requisite to the provision of high quality patient care in the specialty of Urgent Care Medicine. Board certification in Urgent Care Medicine is based on the review and analysis of the current state of clinical knowledge in the field of Urgent Care Medicine as it is reflected in medical literature and the acute care setting. In order to be admitted the urgent care certification process, physician candidates must meet rigorous educational and experienced-based requirements, then pass a psychometrically validated exam which is both medically and legally defensible.

The Degree of Fellow was established by the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine to recognize members who have distinguished themselves among their colleagues by their participation in activities outside their medical practice. They have shown themselves to be exemplary physicians dedicated to education, their community and their profession.

Urgent Care Center Accreditation represents a benchmark of quality, not only to these involved in the health care industry, but to the public as well. When an urgent care center becomes accredited, the center completes an extensive process of internal self-study and external professional review by the AAUCM. Accreditation is a symbol that the urgent care center is committed to providing high-quality care. Accreditation is a voluntary process undertaken by the urgent care facility.

Yes, as long as they are well, they may come to work. However, they will need to closely monitor their condition for the next several days and stay home if they become ill.

When cases of H1N1 are reported to workplaces, notifying employees of a "confirmed" case is not necessary but workplaces should notify employees that influenza is circulating. H1N1 is generally a mild illness and most employees recover at home without the need of a doctor or laboratory testing. So while you may have heard of an employee who had lab testing and is now "confirmed" to have H1N1, there are likely other employees who have had the virus and were not tested. Thus, it is very unlikely that a workplace will know of every single case of Novel H1N1.

Workplaces do not need to be disinfected. Studies have shown that influenza can live on a surface and can make a person sick for up to 2-8 hours. Thus, after employees have left the workplace for the day, the influenza virus is dead before the facility opens the next morning, so it is generally not necessary for workplaces to conduct a "special" cleaning if they have ill employees. However, employees should be vigilant to keep commonly touched surfaces clean on a regular basis. Use routine cleaning products to clean doorknobs, desks, countertops, tables and keyboards It is not necessary to disinfect these surfaces beyond routine cleaning.

Observe for flu-like symptoms in yourself and practice basic flu prevention (hand washing, respiratory etiquette). If you become ill, stay home from work and isolate yourself until you have 24 hours without fever without using fever reducing medications. If you have an underlying health condition that puts you at risk for influenza complications, contact your physician if you become ill as you may be a candidate for antiviral medications.

Are your children’s vaccinations up-to-date before traveling by air? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the past year alone there were more than 3,000 known airline passengers traveling while ill with a contagious disease.

1. The aircraft cabin environment abets the spread of disease-causing microorganisms. Infected passengers cough up, sneeze out and exhale these organisms. Factors that favor this spread include close and prolonged contact with other passengers and, possibly, the vagaries of ventilation systems, dryness of the cabin air, and the presence of passengers originating in countries where such diseases are prevalent.

2. Likely, the number of ill passengers is far greater than the number reported. This further increases the risk of spreading disease. Some ill travelers conceal the fact that they are ill while others are in the incubation period – already contagious but not yet symptomatic and thus unaware that they are ill. The CDC recommends not traveling until 24 hours after fever subsides. But ill persons are often reluctant to cancel scheduled trips. One reason is that some airlines penalize for last-minute cancellations regardless of the reason are an additional disincentive.

3. Airport personnel can refuse boarding when passengers appear ill. But, in fact, this is rarely done. (Most people denied boarding are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.)Airport personnel are poorly trained in recognizing infectious illnesses and say it is a “hassle to get involved.” They can telephone airline medical staff for advice but the staff is rarely on the premises.

4. The CDC has guidelines for handling visibly ill passengers in flight. But the crew rarely takes action. They can ask passengers to wear surgical masks (carried on most aircraft), isolate the passengers (if room is available), contact consultants on the ground for guidance, have quarantine officers meet the aircraft on landing, and, for long flights, make unscheduled stops at a closer airport than the destination.

5. Most diseases transmitted on aircraft are vaccine-preventable. The diseases most commonly found in the CDC survey were so-called childhood diseases: measles, mumps, chickenpox and pertussis (whooping cough). Other studies, done during flu epidemics, found passengers traveling with that disease. Optimally vaccinated children are already immune to these diseases. But an increasing number of parents refuse to vaccinate their children – though there is no known evidence that there are harmful effects.

6. Check with experts when traveling with infants. In infancy, immunity to vaccine-preventable diseases depends on many factors: the disease in question, immunity received from the mother during pregnancy, and vaccines administered to the infant. Generally routine vaccinations are started at about two months of age but infants are not fully protected until months later; many immunizations require multiple doses over many months to become protective. Sometimes, for travel, routine vaccination schedules may have to be altered, started earlier and repeated later, for example. Rarely, travel should be postponed. Decisions may depend on current disease activity at the destination. Influenza vaccination is recommended for everyone who is six months of age and older. Influenza can be a serious disease for infants; hospitalization rates for infants from influenza approach those for the elderly.

7. Adults need vaccinations, too. Many parents who opt not to vaccinate their children erroneously believe that the so-called “childhood” diseases affect only children. Unvaccinated children become unvaccinated adults. And infected adults spread diseases. Also, for some diseases, protection from vaccine administered in childhood wanes with age; in these cases booster doses are necessary.

8. Many childhood diseases are more serious in adulthood. Compared to children, adults who do become infected are more likely to have complications, the complications tend to be more severe, and the illness may last longer, prolonging the period that the adult remains contagious and is able to spread the disease. If women become infected during pregnancy, the fetus may be adversely affected.

9. Vaccinations are especially important for overseas travel. The lower the percentage of children vaccinated against a given disease in a country, the greater the risk of unvaccinated visitors contracting that disease. In many developing countries, many vaccines are largely unavailable. Moreover, travel to developing countries may require vaccines against diseases not seen back home (yellow fever and typhoid, for example).

10. Check vaccinations for cruises. Some conditions favoring the spread of disease-causing organisms in flight also occur on cruise ships: crowding (albeit less so than on aircraft), prolonged togetherness, common ventilation systems, and passengers from different parts of the world, for example. Also, check if vaccinations are necessary at scheduled ports-of call.