Advancing Urgent Care POC Diagnostics to Combat the STI Epidemic

Make Better STI Treatment Decisions in Urgent Care

Obtaining results for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT)/Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) or CT/NG tests in most urgent care environments involves sending specimens to a lab for analysis. Testing can take up to seven days, which means that many urgent care providers make treatment decisions without complete information.

In this presentation, you’ll learn how rapid point-of-care (POC) CT/NG testing enables providers to make more informed decisions about when and when not to treat with antibiotics. You’ll also learn how rapid CT/NG testing provides opportunities to expand patient education and expedite partner therapy. National screening rates under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines are poor—less than 50%—and rapid POC CT/NG testing has the potential to effect an improvement in screening.

Learning Objectives

This webinar will help you:

• Examine key challenges for sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing in urgent care environments, including patients lost to follow-up and the implications of overtreatment/undertreatment of STI
• Review applicable CDC STI Treatment Guidelines and Screening Recommendations
• Formulate sexual health education strategies for STIs in young people
• Describe the importance of timely STI diagnosis and appropriate treatment
• Discuss definitive/directed antibiotic therapy vs. empiric/presumptive treatment
• Evaluate the potential impact of current STI testing on antibiotic stewardship

Watch on Demand       Download Slides (PDF, 1.1MB)

Fisher Healthcare is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E.™ Program. One P.A.C.E.™ credit-hour will be provided for this complimentary basic level program.

Glenn Harnett, MD, Chief Executive Officer at No Resistance Consulting Group

Dr. Harnett has spent over 20 years as a "boots-on-the-ground" clinician—including 10 years as an emergency care physician—before establishing himself as a nationally respected physician and key opinion leader in urgent care environments. He has also been an active author and researcher, designing trials, writing trial protocols, and acting as a principal investigator for numerous clinical trials conducted in the urgent care setting.

After five years as the chief medical officer for American Family Care and helping the organization grow from 17 to 185 clinics, he founded No Resistance Consulting Group in 2016. The organization focuses on clinical trial site management and recruitment for a growing network of high-volume, geographically diverse urgent care and multi-specialty sites.

Dr. Harnett was presented with the inaugural Urgent Care Association Antibiotic Stewardship Champion Award for his efforts in building a coalition of urgent care leaders and senior representatives from the CDC, Pew Institute, and the George Washington University Antibiotic Resistance Action Center to address inappropriate antibiotic use in medicine.