- Due to COVID-19, many pediatrician offices
are having to alter their sick walk-in hours
in order to keep staff and patients safe.
HCA Midwest Health has eight CareNow Urgent Care locations
across Kansas city that are open and ready to see kids
for urgent care issues.
Welcome to House Call, I'm Jessica Salazar,
the Director of Marketing
at Overland Park Regional Medical Center,
a part of HCA Midwest Health.
Today we are talking with Dr. Mary Devers,
Medical Director of CareNow Urgent Care in Kansas City.
Welcome, Dr. Devers.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for joining us today.
So what is the age limit
for pediatric patients at CareNow?
- Well, CareNow is ready, willing, and able to see kiddos
down to three months of age and up.
Our goal is to get them feeling better
and get them back to their own home.
We also are able then to communicate their office visit
with their respective pediatrician or primary care provider.
- Able to close that loop of communication
amongst the primary care physician.
- As soon as we get done seeing the patient,
we are able to automatically fax over the records
as soon as we hit discharge.
So yeah, they'll get the office records
right then and there.
- And that's so important
to continue that continuum of care.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
- What precautions are each CareNow taking
to keep patients and staff safe?
- We have several precautions in place.
One of the first things that we offer
is something called web check-in.
We actually can register online,
fill out the vast majority of paperwork,
and then we'll call you when it's time to come in.
Another option is if you come in
and the waiting room is full,
we can have you complete the paperwork and wait in your car.
If the wait is longer,
we can actually send you home and have you come back.
We are trying to limit the amount of people
physically in the waiting rooms and in the offices.
So we do ask that there's only one essential visitor
or companion there, and not to bring any extra visitors
unless it's absolutely necessary.
Absolutely any pediatric patient's gonna need
to have a parent there.
We are also thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing
all patient rooms, all exam rooms, and all other areas,
according to CDC guidelines and recommendations.
We have also removed to shared items,
like the refreshments, the magazines and toys,
those are also gone from the waiting room.
We are screening every patient who comes in,
whether you're the patient or the visitor, for COVID-19,
and everyone gets a mask upon arrival to our office.
We have social distancing in our office as well,
such that the waiting room chairs are spread apart as well.
We have stickers on the floor for where people can stand
so they are socially six feet distant as well.
We're offering also, the ability to get care
in your own home, by doing virtual visits.
We can do telemedicine visits
for several different conditions,
and you'll just simply check in online,
and our team will send you a link
to set up the virtual visit in just a few easy steps.
- I think that's such a great satisfier for parents,
is knowing that you can do a web check-in,
that if it's crowded, you can wait in your car,
you can actually go home,
someone from CareNow will call you,
come back to one of the CareNow urgent cares,
or a virtual visit via telemedicine.
- Correct.
Correct, correct.
It has been a huge patient satisfier
because of the COVID-19 concerns.
- Now, you wanted to share with us the top 10 reasons
to take a child urgent care.
'Cause obviously, as we discussed earlier,
pediatrician offices across Kansas City
that do have those walk-in urgent care hours
have now limited those due to COVID-19.
So these are the top 10 reasons that you want to see a child
at a CareNow Urgent Care facility.
Number one, just any childhood illness.
Correct.
Any childhood illnesses, hand foot and mouth disease,
fifth disease, chicken pox, whooping coughs,
all the normal childhood illnesses that a kiddos experience.
Second thing would be-- - Number two--
Oh, go ahead.
- I'll go for it, I'll do it.
- Yeah, go head, I was gonna say fevers, yeah.
- Fevers.
Fevers can be from a lot of things.
It's not necessarily anything bad,
but a fever is just a sign
that your body's trying to fight off infection.
A fever is a symptom itself, not specifically a disease.
And a fever can be a sign of many common illnesses,
from colds to flus, bronchitis, strep, mono,
and earaches as well.
Next thing that we see tons of kiddos for is ear infections.
There's a couple of different kinds of ear infections.
One is a middle ear infection or otitis media.
And that is from fluid and bacteria
that build up behind the tympanic membrane.
And then during the summer specifically,
we see a lot of swimmer's ear as well,
which is an infection of the actual ear canal
or the outer ear.
Both of those are easily diagnosed and treated
in our office as well.
Certainly during the summer months,
we see a lot of eye infections.
The most common one by far is pink eye
or acute conjunctivitis.
And this is either a viral or bacterial infection
of the lining of the eye,
easily treated with eyedrops as well.
We do see kiddos with styes.
And styes are more of an infected hair follicle
on the eye lid itself.
We also see corneal abrasions,
and sometimes even corneal ulcerations,
which is a break in the corneal surface.
And that lets bacteria set in as well.
All these things we can easily see
and treat from our office.
The other thing we commonly see
are a lot of respiratory infections,
whether it be viral or bacterial.
They can be in the nose, wind pipe or lungs.
If they are left alone, they can spread down
into the lower respiratory system
and cause pneumonia or bronchitis.
While you can generally treat common colds at home
with rest, fluids, and over-the-counter medications,
other infections may require antibiotics,
especially pneumonia.
- You'll want to check those oxygen levels as well.
- Yes, we check oxygen levels
on every patient that comes in.
A routine vital sign that we update.
The other common thing we see
are sore throats and strep throat.
So if you've ever had a sore throat,
you know how miserable it can make you,
very difficult to swallow.
Most of the time sore throats are caused by viruses,
but we are able to check, obviously,
for bacterial infections as well.
Typically, if it is a bacterial infection like strep,
antibiotics are the way to treat those.
The other thing all our offices offer are x-rays.
And so if you've got a kiddo
with a sprain, strain, or broken bone,
we can see all those kiddos,
and get the initial evaluation done.
We have various splints, we have crutches.
But then we'll end up
getting them set up for definitive care
with one of our pediatric orthopedists
within the HCA Midwest Health's healthcare system,
be able to take care of those definitive fractures,
and schedule the followup straight from our office.
- And I think that's so important for parents
knowing that you can come right off the field
to a CareNow if you need to.
- Yes, yes, yes.
And with many sports picking back up again,
soccer and baseball specifically,
football's getting ready to start here
with conditioning as well, we do.
And we offer extended hours, open from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM,
seven days a week.
So we can see you Saturday after practice,
or Sunday morning beforehand.
Another common thing that we see,
especially in little kiddos
is putting things in places where they don't belong.
We do a lot of (laughs).
- This is my favorite one, Dr. Devers,
because I think I've come to CareNow
with a few lego incidents (laughs).
- Yes lego incidents, things in the ears,
things up the nose.
A big thing would be batteries, little button batteries.
Those are pretty emergent.
We do need to see those kiddos
if they swallow batteries and whatnot.
But otherwise, we're usually able to get those small toys,
small toy parts, crayons, legos, food, pencil erasers,
buttons, seeds, all those things
we're able to take out as well right here in the office.
- Now, the batteries, I mean, that's kind of a big one.
- That is a big one.
- In remote controls, in toys,
especially with the holidays, shopping ramping up,
just parents need to take precaution with batteries.
- Exactly.
And if you even think that your child swallowed a battery,
very simple to diagnose,
'cause it shows up readily on x-rays.
We get a quick x-ray done.
And if it's there, we have to actually send you
into the hospital to get evaluated.
Next thing that we commonly see during the summer months
are skin rashes.
We see hives, we see eczema,
certainly we see the occasional case of chicken pox,
but mostly we see a lot of allergic reactions.
This is some like poison ivy or poison oak,
any kind of swimming pool irritants, chlorine,
certainly in kind of metals, rubber, latex,
soaps or deodorants.
We also see and can treat
all kinds of different skin conditions.
Also during the summertime, big thing for the skin
are bug bites and bugs stings.
They are everywhere right now.
So we see spider bites, we see mosquito bites,
tick bites, flea bites.
Things that they would need to be evaluated for
is if they were having some sort of allergic reaction.
And that could be something as simple as
developing a rash, nausea, vomiting, hives.
But if they have any kind of difficulty breathing,
rapid heart rate,
those kiddos need to be evaluated pretty darn quick.
Sometimes bites can also get secondarily infected.
Kiddos like the scratch,
and bacteria can get right on in there.
They develop flu symptoms, they can have drainage,
they can have inflammation, they can have headache,
they can have rash, swollen glands.
And you can actually develop a cellulitis
where the skin gets real warm and tender and hot to touch
around that bite area.
Those things are all generally treated
with oral antibiotics as well.
- And what happens, Dr. Devers,
if a child needs a higher level of care
after being evaluated at a CareNow?
- Yeah, so if your child comes in,
and we determine that they need
to have a higher level of care,
we can immediately set up a referral
to a HCA Health Midwest network.
We have a pediatric ER
over at Overland park Regional Medical Center.
And also within that same building,
are all the different specialists,
that we can get a referral set right up for ya.
- And why should families choose CareNow Urgent Care,
and not avoid urgent care right now?
- Correct, correct, correct.
With all the safety measures we have in place,
it is very safe to come and see us.
But we are very family friendly.
We welcome kids over three months of age.
We're open seven days a week.
We're open from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
So we provide you care when it's needed most.
We have the availability to do walk-ins
as well as web check-ins, as well as virtual visits.
We also then have that open line of communication
with your pediatrician and family practice provider.
- Thank you Dr. Devers, for joining us today.
CareNow Urgent Care offers eight locations
across the Kansas City area.
You can find a CareNow location near you
at CareNow.com/KansasCity.