By Lori Melichar Gadkari, PhD, MA
Lori Melichar Gadkari, PhD, MA, is a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), in the Research and Evaluation Unit and the program officer for INQRI.
Yesterday the New
England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study co-funded by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, and the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation. “Perspectives
of Physicians and Nurse Practitioners on Primary Care Practice” finds that
96 percent of nurse practitioners and 76 percent of physicians agreed with the Institute of
Medicine report recommendation that “nurse practitioners should be
able to practice to the full extent of their education and training.” The new
study is authored by Karen Donelan, ScD, EdM, Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH,
Robert S. Dittus, MD, MPH, and Peter Buerhaus, PhD, RN.
When asked how increasing the supply of nurse practitioners
would potentially affect the United States health care system, the authors
found that the majority of physicians (73%) said increasing the supply of primary
care nurse practitioners (PCNPs) would lead to improvements in the timeliness
of care. A much smaller majority of physicians (52%) said increasing the
supply of PCNPs would lead to improvements in access to care for people in the country.
However, the new survey found significant disagreement
between primary care physicians and PCNPs about whether increasing the supply of
PCNPs would improve patient safety and the effectiveness of care, and whether
it would reduce costs. There was also a large professional divide about proposed
changes to PCNPs’ scope of practice, putting PCNPs in leadership roles, and the
quality of care that PCNPs provide.
