Characteristics of primary care office visits to nurse practitioners, physician assistants and physicians in United States Veterans Health Administration facilities, 2005 to 2010:a retrospective cross-sectional analysis

Human Resources for Health

Research

Perri A Morgan¹  Deborah A Fisher²  David H Abbott³  Rebecca B McNeil³ 

[1] Department of Community and Family Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA;Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA;Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA;Health Service Research and Development Center of Excellence, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA;

关键词: Health manpower;    Nurse practitioners;    Physician assistants;    Primary health care;    United States Department of Veterans Affairs;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1478-4491-10-42

 received in 2012-06-11, accepted in 2012-10-26,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPrimary care, an essential determinant of health system equity, efficiency, and effectiveness, is threatened by inadequate supply and distribution of the provider workforce. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has been a frontrunner in the use of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs). Evaluation of the roles and impact of NPs and PAs in the VHA is critical to ensuring optimal care for veterans and may inform best practices for use of PAs and NPs in other settings around the world. The purpose of this study was to characterize the use of NPs and PAs in VHA primary care and to examine whether their patients and patient care activities were, on average, less medically complex than those of physicians.MethodsThis is a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of administrative data from VHA primary care encounters between 2005 and 2010. Patient and patient encounter characteristics were compared across provider types (PA, NP, and physician).ResultsNPs and PAs attend about 30% of all VHA primary care encounters. NPs, PAs, and physicians fill similar roles in VHA primary care, but patients of PAs and NPs are slightly less complex than those of physicians, and PAs attend a higher proportion of visits for the purpose of determining eligibility for benefits.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that a highly successful nationwide primary care system relies on NPs and PAs to provide over one quarter of primary care visits, and that these visits are similar to those of physicians with regard to patient and encounter characteristics. These findings can inform health workforce solutions to physician shortages in the USA and around the world. Future research should compare the quality and costs associated with various combinations of providers and allocations of patient care work, and should elucidate the approaches that maximize quality and efficiency.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Morgan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012