Record Urgent Care Convention Attendance Reflects Industry Growth

For those that attended the Urgent Care Association of America's 2008 Annual Convention, the possibilities of the future became very clear. Health care is changing, and not only does urgent care play an essential role in the future of care but it is also serving as a an expanding catalyst for this change.

UCAOA (and the city of New Orleans) were host to the largest gathering of urgent care professionals to date - reflecting the continuing growth of the industry - over 8,000 centers in the US. The attendees discussed the possible futures of primary care, advanced their individual skills and networked with their peers on all aspects of urgent care – clinical and practice management – and how urgent care provides a unique service to their communities.

478 people participated in the Pre-Convention alone – planning the opening of new clinics in Comprehensive Clinic Start-up, making their collections run more effectively in Billing Essentials, honing their hands-on clinical skills in Procedure Clinic and exploring the addition of workforce medicine to their clinics in Integrating Occupational Medicine courses. While sitting in the classrooms, you could really soak up the excitement of the urgent care industry.

The Main Convention saw a peak attendance of 660 professionals on Wednesday, plus the opening of the exhibit hall with 68 vendor organizations showcasing products and services specifically for urgent care.

The Annual Membership Meeting held during the Convention also marked the election of new UCAOA Board of Directors members: Jeff Collins, MD; Don Dillahunty, DO, MPH; J. Dale Key, Peter Lamelas, MD, MBA, and Laurel Stoimenoff.

One highlight of the Convention was the release of preliminary results for the first-ever National Urgent Care Benchmarking Study. Led by Harvard Medical School’s Robin Weinick, PhD and fully supported by a UCAOA grant, this study will shed much-needed light on the urgent care industry. Visit www.ucaoa.org this Fall to learn more on the survey results as final figures are released.

UCAOA’s next meeting is the Fall Conference September 26-27, 2008 in Memphis, Tennessee, and the 2009 Annual Convention will be held on April 20-23 under the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Urgent Care Association of America
4320 Winfield Road, Suite 200
Warrenville, IL 60555
www.ucaoa.org
Lou Ellen Horwitz, MA
Executive Director
877-698-2262
lhorwitz@ucaoa.org

Urgent Care Association of America: UCAOA is a national association for all urgent care professionals and provides training, publications, networking and other activities and resources for its members and the industry. UCAOA hosts two conferences annually, publishes the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, and supports two urgent care fellowship programs. Visit www.ucaoa.org to learn more or to become a member.

This release was published on openPR.