• Am. J. Med. · Oct 2024

    Access to Urgent Care Practices Improves Understanding and Management of Endemic Coccidioidomycosis: Maricopa County, Arizona, 2018-2023.

    • John N Galgiani, Anqi Lang, Brandon J Howard, Jie Pu, Irene Ruberto, Lia Koski, Jennifer Collins, Esteban Rios, and Thomas Williamson.
    • The Valley Fever Center for Excellence, Department of Medicine, and the Department of Immunobiology, College of Medicine-Tucson, University of Arizona, Tucson; The BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson. Electronic address: spherule@arizona.edu.
    • Am. J. Med. 2024 Oct 1; 137 (10): 951957951-957.

    BackgroundCoccidioidomycosis within endemic regions is often undiagnosed because appropriate testing is not performed. A dashboard was developed to provide information about the prevalence of coccidioidomycosis throughout the year.MethodsBanner Urgent Care Service has many clinics within Maricopa County, Arizona, a highly endemic region for coccidioidomycosis. All clinic visits and subset analyses for patients with International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes for pneumonia (J18.*) or erythema nodosum (L52) during 2018-2024 were included. Tabulated were daily frequencies of visits, pneumonia and erythema nodosum coding, coccidioidal testing, and test results. Banner Urgent Care Services' counts of monthly coccidioidomycosis diagnoses were compared with those of confirmed coccidioidomycosis cases reported to Maricopa County Department of Public Health.ResultsMonthly frequencies of urgent care coccidioidomycosis diagnoses strongly correlated with public health coccidioidomycosis case counts (r = 0.86). Testing frequency for coccidioidomycosis correlated with overall pneumonia frequency (r = 0.52). The proportion of pneumonia due to coccidioidomycosis varied between <5% and >45% within and between years. Coccidioidomycosis was a common cause of erythema nodosum (65%; 95% confidence interval, 45%-67%) and independent of pneumonia. Over half of Banner Urgent Care Services' coccidioidomycosis diagnoses were coded for neither pneumonia nor erythema nodosum.ConclusionData provided by the coccidioidomycosis dashboard can assist urgent care practitioners in knowing when coccidioidomycosis is prevalent in the community. Patients with exposure to endemic coccidioidomycosis who develop erythema nodosum or pneumonia should routinely be tested for coccidioidomycosis. Data from private health care organizations can augment surveillance of diseases important to public health.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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