Bovine Fecal Matter: Here’s An Easy Way to Increase Access to High-Quality, Affordable Health Care
I’m all for being a team player and support all the different healthcare roles in today’s healthcare environment, but I don’t like lies or manipulation such as being put forth by the above referenced article (1):
“In study(2) after rigorous study (3), evidence demonstrates that NPs offer significant cost savings (4) with no sacrifice of quality of care (5). Indeed, they show that NPs often provide superior care (6), including spending more time with patients on prevention and counseling.”
I’m ashamed of my former profession purporting such misinformation and constantly pitting NPs against physicians. This article has to do with expanding the role of nurse practitioners in providing primary care. As a former nurse practitioner (NP), I’m all for the proper utilization of NPs on physician lead healthcare teams. What irks me the most is the lies and manipulation about these studies and research. These are not as rigorous as professed. They are not as high quality as professed. Data and conclusions in the studies are often misinterpreted and misreported. This needs to stop!
The first study referenced in the article (2) Poghosyan, Lusine & Timmons, Edward & Abraham, Cilgy & Martsolf, Grant. (2019). The Economic Impact of the Expansion of Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice for Medicaid. Journal of Nursing Regulation. 10. 15-20. 10.1016/S2155-8256(19)30078-X concluded: States that expand NP SOP may provide
The second study referenced (3): Perloff J, DesRoches CM, Buerhaus P. Comparing the Cost of Care Provided to Medicare Beneficiaries Assigned to Primary Care Nurse Practitioners and Physicians. Health Serv Res. 2016;51(4):1407–1423.
“our results should be interpreted with awareness that it is unclear whether incident to billing under- or overstates the differences between these two groups of clinicians.”
The third study referenced in the blog article (4) Chattopadhyay, S., Zangro, G. (2019) The Economic Cost and Impacts of Scope of Practice Restrictions on Nurse Practitioners. Nursing Economics. Nov/Dec 2019., Vol 37 No 6 concluded: Empirical results show that eliminating restrictions significantly reduces Medicare costs statistically, suggesting the need for increased participation of NPs in primary care to ensure access, patient safety, and quality of care at reduced cost. At the national level, eliminating restrictions is shown to result in annual Medicare cost savings of $44.5 billion. I may be missing something here, but it seems to go from a correlation to a cause and effect. In this study, there is obvious author and publication bias with statements such as: NPs primarily practice in rural areas, and with increasing shortage of primary care physicians, access to care in rural areas is decreasing, thereby negatively impacting health outcomes. This has been proven not to be true: https://authenticmedicine.com/2019/05/straw-man-the-dishonesty-needs-to-stop/
The fourth study referenced in the blog article (5) Newhouse RP, Stanik-Hutt J, White KM, Johantgen M, Bass EB, Zangaro G, Wilson RF, Fountain L, Steinwachs DM, Heindel L, Weiner JP. Advanced practice nurse outcomes 1990-2008: a systematic review. Nursing Economic$ 2011; 29(5): 230-250 concluded: that advanced practice registered nurses provided safe, effective and quality care in a variety of settings and in partnership with physicians and other providers had a significant role in the promotion of health. An independent review of this study – Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE): Quality-assessed Reviews [Internet]. York (UK): Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (UK); 1995-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK99366/ wrote: There were questions about data quality and some of the review methods, but the relatively conservative conclusions appear reasonable. There is also questionable author bias and publication bias. It was unclear whether unpublished studies were sought so publication bias may have affected the review.
This study was quite large and complicated. The review methods appeared to be aimed at reducing possible reviewer error and bias. Study quality was assessed using an unpublished system and reported only as an overall rating of high or low quality; this made it difficult to comment independently on the reliability of evidence presented. I will leave it here.
The fifth study referenced in the blog article (6) Kurtzman, E.T., & Barnow, B.S. (2017). A Comparison of Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, and Primary Care Physicians’ Patterns of Practice and Quality of Care in Health Centers. Medical Care, 55, 615–622 concluded: Across the outcomes studied, results suggest that NP and PA care were largely comparable to PCMD care in HCs (community health centers -HC; primary care physicians -PCMDs). The blog article used this study to conclude NPs provide superior care when the study itself reported the following results: On 7 of the 9 outcomes studied, no statistically significant differences were detected in NP or PA care compared with PCMD care.The blog author might be well served to know that no statistical significance/difference does not equate to superiority. Another falsehood.
After a brief review of the evidence presented in the article, I conclude that the blog premise is based on data of questionable quality. While that might not have been the author’s intention, it seems consistent with many writings that pit NPs against MD/DOs. The article is correct about one thing though “Unfortunately, the supply of primary care doctors isn’t keeping up with the demand.” However, this shortage of physicians is a problem that must be solved by physicians with increased production of physicians. You be the judge.
REFERENCES:
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heres-an-easy-way-to-increase-access-to-high-quality-affordable-health-care/2020/01/02/46c64768-29d8-11ea-b2ca-2e72667c1741_story.html
- https://www.journalofnursingregulation.com/article/S2155-8256(19)30078-X/fulltext
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1475-6773.12425?referrer_access_token=XCxzbQ8FaoMdgNq2oosns4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC64_xSQwR0ZAld2D30NU4Tb1zGM1kP6NKIDCfPub9wCJPG9XJXKb_Wnl0YLrxvd1mNAdr0O5K7tInYh8DzSeXP4epxW7xKVdGkSURvQgEDKS2djnxa41TRXcn7-GL8eThQM%3D
- https://www.nursingeconomics.net/necfiles/2019/ND19/273.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22372080
- https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/mcar/2017/00000055/00000006/art00012
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The ultimate question in any circumstances is “What does 95% mean?” If one will accept a 5% failure rate in a situation, well then, one need not focus too rigorously on quality. For all the hand-wringing (literally) that Dr. Semmelweis brought into the medical profession, I am sure that if a physician only washes her/his hands when there is visible schmutz on them, or black under the fingernails, then I seriously doubt that the nosocomial infection rate in hospitals would go up more than 5% IF one studies ALL THE MONEY spent on hand sanitizing, an astute CEO could find a bonanza of profit by taking out all those auto-dispensers, non-sterile gloves, all that jazz. Surgeons – if you put on sterile gloves, who cares what’s on your hands? And how often do you nick a glove? What’s the point?
If the point is pride in excellence, it’s been redefined as a waste of money by arrogant doctors. Like washing lab coats and scrubs. Remember when they used to be about cleanliness, rather than fashion? Sorry, I’m an old fussbudget.