Walkin in Memphis! Marketing Tidbits and Highlights from the 2008 UCAOA Fall Conference.

The Fall 2008 UCAOA Conference went great! It's a great chance for physicians to earn CME's as well as professionals in the Urgent Care industry to come together and learn from each other...and we manage to have some fun while we're at it!

I went to a great Marketing lecture by Sam Yates of Yates & Associates that touched on the importance of a strong web presence via Search Engine Optimization (SEO)- or boosting your website's ranking in searches targeted toward your desired audience. I was not surprised that not many in the audience were familiar with SEO, or even had a website. He threw out a couple compelling statistics- 75% of college students and young adults use the internet for their first stop for health care information... and did you know that 62% of buying decisions are made from web-based research? Maybe we should consider our web-exposure when trying to reach emerging generations as well as a very integral part of our target market...those who want to buy! Thanks Sam for a great lecture- I didn't even attempt to cover all of the great tips you included.

We also had a great time seeing some of our favorite exhibitors, meeting new clients as well as greeting others face to face that we've built relationships over the phone. We were happy to introduce our partnerships with Pharmalink and VaxServe of Sanofi Pasteur as exceptional vendors to the urgent care community. We met other potential partners and spoke with prospective clients about discounts offered to them on products and services through the FindUrgentCare Vendor Network. Thanks Becky and everyone at the UCAOA and John at PME Expo services for such a great conference!

Other Highlights: Walking down Beale street and hearing some great blues. Street acrobats and even acrobats in bars. The ducks in the Memphis Peabody Hotel that March down from the elevator and across the red carpet to play in the fountain. Experiencing some down home barbeque- just about every meal except for breakfast over the course of 3 days. Bread pudding. The sunset view from the top of the Memphis Peabody. Spotting Priscilla Presley. Touring Graceland.

Elvis lives!- Graceland Tour.---->


Amy and Elvis (left) at the Urgent Care America/ UCAOA party on top of the Peabody- just in time for the sunset.

Go Green or Go Home!! Great health tips and advice for becoming eco-friendly

I am one of those people you see in the local market scanning the labels on my groceries for those ugly more-than-four-letter-words like "hydrogenated oil", "yellow #8909793838295...etc.","high fructose corn syrup"... and those sneaky words that end in "ose" or "itol" that basically mean SUGAR! I find pleasure from decoding tricky marketing tactics like "no trans fat per serving"- which basically means that in terms of one serving, there is a low enough content for the FDA to allow them to use that label.

Want to be more informed about the benefits of going organic and see what's up with all the hype surrounding "going green"? I found a great blog by a company called Earthpure Organics. Browse topics that discuss which fats are good fats, or find out the benefits of being one of those people who carries the cloth bags into the grocery store...besides the fact that it's sort of hip right now, anyway you catch my drift. If you're into learning more about the subject, check out this blog: http://nextgenvending.blogspot.com/. Enjoy!

The age of the Email Healthcare...and scares: can your iphone make your popcorn pop?

Some of you might have been similarly fooled by a certain email that is circulating. It's about cell phones having the ability to pop popcorn...and thus, possibly taking a similar toll on your brain while you use them...or maybe you were not fooled...and you're laughing right now. Regardless, check out the video that has convinced many to keep perpetuating this spoof by forwarding it all their bff's and even work-colleagues.

The "YouTube" quality clip documents three different groups of people arranging their cell phones around a few raw kernels and after simultaneously calling each phone, the result is popped corn! Well I have to admit, it had me and a few co-workers intrigued enough to try it ourselves after it had been forwarded to us. Sure enough, we set up the experiment with all of its constants, and after calling all three cell-phones at the same time, each of us reached the voicemail without the birth of a single crunchy morsel. A website called snopes.com has an article that also validated our results with the popcorn; in addition to this, it debunks a rumor that had previously circulated about cell phones poaching an egg. We were disappointed that the email had fooled so many...and that this meant our cell phones wouldn't be cooking dinner for us anytime soon...but very relieved that our brains were not currently being subjected to the same electromagnetic activity powered in that one-minute pop setting on a microwave! Most young professionals, myself included, don't even own a house phone because we would never be home enough to use it. This would mean some serious pop-corn brains for us!

I do not mean to discount any claim that cell-phone usage may pose a long-term danger to our health, consumers should be compelled to wonder whether pointing radio waves at our heads from satellites in the sky has an effect on our health. But this absurdly lame spoof, that's easy to debunk with a few cell phones and minutes of your time, did get me thinking about how much credibility our society gives these forwarded emails we constantly circulate. It also made me sad that there really are people out there who actually spend their time constructing spoof videos to generate false claims to fool the masses. What other health advice have we taken from gmail or MyYahoo? I'm going to practice what I preach and take a second look before I "forward".

Sick and Overseas

Getting sick is not fun. Well being sick away from home is worse. Being sick in a different country is the worst! Away from your creature comforts, away from your bed, sometimes- but not in my case- away from decent health care, and it's always- a bummmer to experience culture, food, castles, and breathtaking scenery with a runny nose and sinusy headache.


I was in the middle of Gothic, splendid, superb Prague with an extreme sinus infection and the start of an earache after spending a few days hiking around the countryside. Thankfully, I was able to get some antibiotics, but unfortunately, my symptoms didn't subside until 2 days after returning home. Post castle exploration, post cobblestone streets lined with boutiques, post hidden gardens, and after enduring 24 hours of cough-ridden travel, and 1 day spent at mom's with a humidifier, down comforter and some Vick's- I finally started to feel better.

Don't think I didn't try while in Europe though- oh I tried! Without a chance to rest until Prague, I spent a whole day resting at cafes and tea-houses. Granted, it was definitely a far cry from torture- I sipped a cappuccino in the center of Wenceslas Square while people-watching and catching up on some reading. I endured 3 long hours with my fellow sick comrades at a tea house sipping "A Scent of Cashmere" and nibbling at a hummus platter. I must say, Prague was still quite lovely through the lens of my watery, allergenic eyes, but I still feel sorry for myself for missing out on a group hike to a hidden castle and a chance to peruse all the quaint little shops.



As a perk, I learned a few Czech home remedies while being a sick-person during my stay- physicians, no worries, they will not put you out of business. The Czechs were very proud of a Czech plum brandy called Slivovice, which they recommended to all of us who were experiencing colds (a cold is too friendly of a term for what I had- I would call it a freeze, yes, cold just isn't sufficient). Although I wimped out and ommited, a friend of mine "experienced the burn" with a shot, and another enjoyed a splash in some hot tea with honey. Both reported great results- granted neither are physicians or conducted a long term study with constants and such. However, the Czech's seemed to fully back the reliability of the elixer.

We encountered the next remedy during a group trip to some mineral springs. With fountains disbursed throughout the park with purified water containing all the natural minerals, I can honestly say, my throat did feel a little better that day. I will tell you that it tasted like a penny and I'm not quite sure how the many who came to satisfy jugs and bottles actually consumed the sum of their collections. I reversed most of what I attempted quaff for the sake of my health. "Blickety blah!" would be an accurate verbal description.

The last and most uncertain of these home-remedies was a plant called the "stinging nettle" in English. I won't write much about this except it left a bad taste in my mouth and seemed ineffective...I'm not sure if this one was an actual remedy or our Czech friends were being funny. Hmmmm.

Although I would still choose perfect health on a vacation abroad as an alternative, I decided, home-sweet-home, wherever that is, is the best place to be when you feel icky.

The Big Conference in the Big Easy! 2008 Annual Convention, New Orleans

FindUrgentCare met lots of new friends back at the 2008 UCAOA Conference in New Orleans! Aside from the way-too-much-fun vendors like DocuTap and UHS, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 wonderful attendees.

The conference ran over Memorial Day weekend at the same time as Jazzfest and was a great educational experience as well as fun for many- some had a little too much fun on Bourbon Street and were seen wearing sunglasses to class the next day. Not us, although we did find some great shades(see above), we managed to get to bed at a decent hour every night.

Thanks to all who stopped by the booth, we enjoyed meeting many new faces and seeing lots of familiar ones! Congrats Dr. Bazemore with XPressCare in Nevada for winning the iPod Drawing!

Workin' hard at the AAUCM Conference in Baltimore

The AAUCM Conference was hosted at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore, right by the harbor, so not only were we able to meet lots of new Urgent Care friends, but we enjoyed a beautiful view after hours....and some sophisticated recreation too!

Your WHAT hurts?!!

Ever have an embarrassing healthcare issue that you don't exactly want the waiting room to hear? The FindUrgentCare online Patient Pre-assessment Form has become an outlet for some of those more private healthcare complaints. The form, which has space to include your health concern, is filled out online at the comfort of your own computer and transmitted directly to the front desk of your chosen urgent care facility. That way the receptionist won't say, "your WHAT hurts?!"