CRITICAL! A term that most people get terrified upon hearing, especially when it comes to a hospital setting. This reference indicates that medical emergency is not only scary but terrifying as millions of people lose their lives every year because of critical illnesses. When it comes to such acute patients, it is vital that their care needs to be prioritized and well-coordinated covered through timely identification and basic life-saving treatments.
To improve the care of such patients, iCare Emergency Room and Urgent Care is working efficiently with a focus on ER and Urgent care centers that treat a variety of illnesses. Having board-certified physicians, the facility is offering adult and pediatric emergency care, and the organization is fully equipped with an emergency and urgent care department.
Leading the team of such board-certified physicians is Shane Cole, CEO, and Medical Doctor. With 12 years of clinical experience in prominent metropolitan hospital emergency rooms, he is helping patients transition from the worst moments back to enjoying a healthy life.
We at Insights Care, while searching for the 10 Best Urgent Care Centers in 2022, crossed paths with Shane. In order to learn more about how iCare Emergency Room and Urgent Care is making a difference through its leading-edge approach, kindly delve into Shane’s insightful interview.
Please brief our audience about iCare Emergency Room and Urgent Care, its values, mission, and the aspects that make it a leader in providing quality urgent care services.
We are physician owned and led facility. We provide a better way to care – both for our patients and for the staff they care for them. We firmly believe that happy healthcare workers who feel supported lead to healthier and happier patients.
What are the services offered by your organization that give it a leading edge over the competition?
We are an ER and Urgent Care hybrid. We are a real ER. iCare is staffed by physicians that are board-certified, specifically in Emergency Medicine. All iCare nurses are emergency room trained. Our state-of-the-art facility complements the abilities of our highly-trained staff. On the urgent care side, where we see the vast majority of our patients, we offer affordable in-network care just like any other major urgent care brand.
Please brief us about yourself, Shane, your professional journey in the healthcare industry, and your contribution to the organization’s success.
I am an emergency medicine physician and entrepreneur working to implement novel improvements to our nation’s healthcare delivery system. My expertise includes hospital and freestanding ER-based emergency medical care and the development and implementation of cutting-edge business management tools. I enjoy generating new ideas and devising feasible solutions to broadly relevant problems.
My colleagues would describe me as a driven, resourceful individual who maintains a positive, proactive attitude when faced with adversity. Currently, I’m seeking opportunities that will allow me to develop and promote increased access to emergency care across varying socioeconomic demographics to benefit human health. Specific fields of interest include telemedicine, freestanding ER and Urgent Care management, and general aviation.
What is your opinion on the impact of the current pandemic on the global healthcare sector, and what challenges did you face during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns?
The lockdowns were a sad but very necessary part of our pandemic response. The stress on the healthcare system was immense. Had it not been blunted by the lockdowns, it would have crushed us. In addition, they bought us time to develop life-saving vaccines.
The pandemic stressed our system to the breaking point and beyond. For our firm specifically, our volume increased 10-fold in a matter of weeks. We scrambled to scale up and hire. Due to our strong reputation in the community, our elite management team was able to attract qualified personnel who held our values and fit our mission.
In your opinion, what could be the future of urgent care services with constant development in medical technologies?
Telemedicine has, out of necessity, enjoyed heavy adoption since the onset of the pandemic. It provides marked improvements to convenience and patient access. We do everything else on our phones; why not see our doctors, right? As a physician, I feel that this modality has major flaws, however.
There is no substitute for being in the same room as the patient using sight, sound, touch, and smell. Cell phones and computer video do not give the details needed to diagnose many rashes or examine a sore throat or an ear. There is no ability to do an x-ray or check a urine test. They say that for someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Medicine is nuanced. Perhaps a combination of virtual reality and home kits that can allow for a remote physical exam will exist in the future. That is several years off in the future however.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding healthcare professionals aspiring to venture into the healthcare industry?
First, Choose a great residency program. Preferably one that serves a dense inner city population with a high burden of disease. Second, Go into business for yourself. Don’t sacrifice owning your own practice in favor of making a quick buck right out of residency.
How do you envision scaling your organization’s operations and offerings in the future?
We hope to do this with a mix of private equity and physician investment.
Please share the awards and recognitions that your organization has received so far since its inception.
- Best Place for Working Parents
- Best Place to Work
