ArticleHuman resources for health2012
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.
Article in Human resources for health, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- Managing access to primary care clinics using scheduling templates.Health care management science · 2021Article
- Differences in patient population and service provision between nurse practitioner and general practitioner consultations in Swiss primary care: a case study.BMC family practice · 2020Article
- Utilization and Costs by Primary Care Provider Type: Are There Differences Among Diabetic Patients of Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants?Medical care · 2020Article
- Outcomes of primary care delivery by nurse practitioners: Utilization, cost, and quality of care.Health services research · 2020Article
- Complexity as a factor for task allocation among general practitioners and nurse practitioners: a narrative review.BMC family practice · 2020Review
- Primary Care Confusion-Public Knowledge of NP and PA Duties and Their Information Gathering Behaviors.Journal of general internal medicine · 2018Article
- Capturing complexity in clinician case-mix: classification system development using GP and physician associate data.BJGP open · 2018Article
- Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, and Physicians Are Comparable in Managing the First Five Years of Diabetes.The American journal of medicine · 2018Article
- Factors Associated With Having a Physician, Nurse Practitioner, or Physician Assistant as Primary Care Provider for Veterans With Diabetes Mellitus.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financing · 2017Article
- Physician Associate and General Practitioner Consultations: A Comparative Observational Video Study.PloS one · 2016Observational
- Nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians in community health centers, 2006-2010.Healthcare (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2015Article
- Physician associates and GPs in primary care: a comparison.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2015Observational
- Agents for change: nonphysician medical providers and health care quality.The Permanente journal · 2015Article
- Nurse Practitioner Involvement in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations: Association With Quality of Care.American journal of medical quality : the official journal of the American College of Medical QualityArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
unlabelled
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.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.