Pediatric Urgent cares are uniquely staffed withpediatricians and/or pediatric trained providers. Pediatric urgent cares havealso gained more popularity in the past decade, as it has proven to be a goodalternative to emergency departments when it comes to after hours and weekendcare for urgencies.

An area where the Pediatric Urgent Care still needs togrow and expand is Pediatric Mental Health crisis.

There has been a significant escalationof pediatric patients at the Emergency Department seeking care for emotionaland behavioral crises. There is an inadequate community mental health resource.We need to target for emergent mental health advocacy which includesimplementing suicide screening and increasing mobile mental health crisisservices and furthermore. This can be easily made assessable at the Urgent CareCenters. Also, implementation of urgent care telepsychiatry programs can helppediatric patients significantly.

There are numerous ideas and example ofadvocacy efforts which can lead to meaningful change in mental health caresystems. Urgent Care physicians and pediatricians can be an advocate for changeand implementation.

RavneetDhaliwal, MD FAAP

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