Meeting Highlights

Pediatric Urgent Care Subcommittee Meeting

Pediatric Urgent Care subcommittee meeting in Washington, DC

The inaugural meeting of the Pediatric Urgent Care subcommittee was held on October 23rd, 2015 at the AAP, NCE conference in Washington, DC. It was very well attended with 40 enthusiastic members participating. The meeting began with a round table introduction of all the attendees followed by a Usha Sankrithi and Jeff Schor presentation entitled, "Pediatric Urgent Care: A Rapidly Developing Specialty." A very lively discussion ensued around the need for standards in Pediatric Urgent Care. Joe Wright, a former Executive Council member of SOEM, reminded everyone that extensive standards have been developed for emergency services and can be revised and adapted for urgent care. Current executive council members, Drs. Paul Sirbaugh and Tony Woodward, agreed and gave suggestions to build on some of the existing work done by SOEM. Dr. James Perrin, immediate past president of the AAP, attended the meeting and mentioned that practice change is a big focus of the AAP and that it will be important to disseminate information to all pediatricians. He also informed the group that because of a rapidly changing health care environment, the recent AAP policies on urgent care and retail-based clinics will be revised and combined. The new policy will be titled, "Acute Care Services Outside the Medical Home" and will also cover additional areas that may affect acute care delivery such as telemedicine.
Other discussion topics included:

• Working with general urgent care providers to improve their ability to care for pediatric patients
• The importance of working closely with primary care pediatricians to ensure continuity of care as
  well as cooperating on overall quality
• The importance of recognizing pediatric urgent care as part of the medical "neighborhood", and not just the home
• The need to establish research programs in pediatric urgent care
• The importance of defining the different models and scope of pediatric urgent care delivery

The subcommittee will focus on building a better understanding of all aspects of pediatric urgent care including clinical excellence, education and training, research, advocacy, sharing best practices, and defining standards. The following workgroups were identified as focus areas and attendees were asked to sign up according to their areas of interest:

• Defining Standards
• Education and Training
• Research
• Advocacy

The Pediatric Urgent Care subcommittee welcomes active participation in the work groups and would also like to extend an invitation to anyone associated with Urgent Care areas to join the subcommittee. We are very excited to be able to develop policies and best practices to ensure that children in our communities receive the best care.

To join the subcommittee you must be a member of the AAP (MD's/ARNP's). The subcommittee is part of the section of emergency medicine.  The form to join the subcommittee is located in this section. If you have questions please contact Usha Sankrithi at [email protected] or Jeffrey Schor [email protected]

Click on the buttons below to join SPUC and participate in the listserv.

Anyone who is affiliated or interested in urgent care can join SPUC - MD's, ARNP's, PA-C, nurses, MA's, CNA's, nurse techs, nursing administrators and medical directors, etc. to name a few.