Urgent care clinics have long been providing immediate care to those in need of it – for the past 20 years now, as a matter of fact. And in that time, the number of urgent care locations has spread immensely, reaching more than 7,000 by the time we had hit the year of 2016 and only continuing to grow and grow in the years that have followed since. Nowadays, more than 20,000 doctors and other such medical professionals are employed throughout the country at various urgent care locations. In addition to this, up to three million people get immediate treatment from urgent care centers over the course not of a year or even a month, but during the duration of just one single week. There is no denying that this is something that is quite impressive indeed.
But why is this the case? For one thing, the breadth of immediate treatment that can be provided at any given walk in urgent care center is impressive – more impressive and all encompassing than you might have even realized! For one thing, even conditions like fractures can be both diagnosed and provided with immediate treatment at up to 80% of all walk in clinics in this country. Wound repair is also the most common procedure that you’ll see conducted at any given urgent care location, and it is one that often involves more complicated processes like the application of stitches, something you might not think possible to find outside of a hospital setting. But it is more than possible to receive this type of immediate treatment in many a walk in clinic, of this there is now no doubt.
And certainly illnesses can be treated in the average walk-in medical clinic as well. For instance, you might go to a walk-in medical care clinic for immediate treatment of a respiratory infection. After all, such an illness is the top most cared for illness in walk-in clinics and multicare urgent care locations all throughout the United States. This can be attributed to the fact that respiratory infections often develop after another illness, such as the flu or even a particularly bad cold (of which there are more than one billion cases over the course of just one year). For many people, fortunately, a respiratory infection of just about any nature will be able to be treated with the use of antibiotics, something that can be prescribed at walk in urgent care centers.
In addition to providing immediate treatment and care, urgent care clinics can also even provide a good deal of preventative care. The flu shot is just one example of this. After all, it is hugely important that everyone who is able gets flu shots. Flu shots are never 100% effective at preventing the flu (though their exact efficacy will vary from year to year) but they do work well to prevent many cases of it. As a matter of fact, the flu shot reduced the likelihood of contracting the flu by more than 45% in adults during the flu season spanning 2017 into 2018. And for children who got the flu shot in this same year, the chances of getting the flu dropped by more than 60% – something that almost certainly saved a great many lives. After all, the flu is not the same as the common cold, though many erroneously think that the two are able to be closely compared. Unfortunately, the flu is often much more serious and can lead to complications like pneumonia and even full body sepsis which can in turn all too easily lead to untimely death. But getting a flu shot can greatly mitigate this risk and, fortunately, flu shots will be able to be found at just about any urgent care location.
At the end of the day, urgent care clinics not only provide immediate treatment and care, but convenient medical care that is not always able to be found in other places. For many people, urgent care clinics provide accessible medical care and access to doctors that is not always readily available to them, thanks to issues with scheduling or even insurance. Ultimately, urgent care centers matter a great deal in today’s world.