The first time your college aged daughter tried to call, she dialed your cell phone. You were at an outdoor marching band competition and you could hardly hear a word she was saying. She hung up and few minutes later called your husband’s cell phone. She tried to talk to him, but her voice was weak and the background noise at the competition prevented him from understanding her. Again, she hung up.
Two failed cell phone calls within a few minutes were concerning. Especially calls from a daughter living 12 hours away on a college campus. A daughter who did well to call you once a week at the most. You and your husband reacted the same way. Without even needing a word between the two of you, both you and your husband immediately stood up and starting make your way out of the stadium. Once you had exited the top of the stadium your husband dialed your daughter. It was very difficult to hear her, but she explained that her throat was so sore she could hardly talk. She had been calling to tell you that a friend was taking her to a nearby urgent care facility.
An hour later she called to explain that she had strep throat. The doctor had given her a steroid shot and had prescribed antibiotics. In addition to the strep, she also had a severe headache, which was the main reason she had not driven herself. The doctor had also given her a a shot for that. The shot would make her very tried, according to the doctor, and she was planning to sleep the rest of the weekend.
Thank goodness for urgent care locations.
A few weeks later, you were able to hear the cell phone conversation when the same daughter called at 10:30 at night. Her opening line sounded calm, but was alarming. “I don’t want you to panic, but I am on the way to the emergency room.”
With the same friend as a driver, your daughter explained that she feared that she must have eaten something that had a trace of peanuts. She had been studying in the library when someone brought in some homemade treats. Your daughter selected what she thought was a safe sample and she felt fine for the next two hours. When the library closed, however, and she started walking to the dorm she could tell that something was not right. When she realized that her face was all red she took an antihistamine and asked a friend to take her to the hospital.
The staff on site, in turn, quickly realized that your daughter needed immediate attention. Within minutes, your daughter’s friend texted you to let you know that they were in a room, and your daughter had received an epinephrine shot and was hooked to an IV. They would be staying for four hours and your daughter was being closely monitored.
Thank goodness for hospital emergency rooms.
Perhaps even more importantly, thank goodness for a daughter who was wise enough to know when to go to one of the closest urgent care locations, and when to go to a hospital emergency room.
Convenient Care Is Often a Top Priority
A top reason to go to one of the urgent care locations is that 85% of these centers are open seven days a week. The convenience of care at these health clinic settings is a major advantage for families and individuals who need care on evenings and weekends.
Families know all too well, in fact, that health problems and emergencies rarely happen at a convenient time. And while hospital emergency rooms are also open 24 hours, they are often an unnecessary step for more simple situations like a strep throat test or one of the frequent ankle injuries that seem to plaque Americans. If, for instance, the 25,000 Americans who suffer from an ankle sprain every day relied on emergency room treatment, those doctors would have a difficult time to get to other patients.
Understanding when to go to one of the convenient urgent care locations, and when to go to a hospital emergency room is simple. Unless it is truly an emergency, urgent care settings are the solution.