Extending Medicine's Reach. The Future of PA's and NP's with Ellen Kurtzman, PhD.

Today we're exploring the future of PA's and NP's. Many of you listening work very closely with them, and in-fact many of you listening are PA's and NP's. As the roles, responsibilities and autonomy of PA's and NP's continue to grow, an interesting question comes up. Can we actually compare the effectiveness of PA's and NP's to doctors? To help us tackle this question is today's guest, Dr. Ellen Kurtzman. Ellen is a professor of nursing at George Washington University and she has made nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants a major focus of her research. She's held several senior leadership roles in organizations such as the American Health Care Association, American Red Cross, and The Partnership for Behavioral Healthcare. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Ellen's recently published research compares the practice patterns and quality of care of NP's/PA's vs. family physicians, in a very specific setting. As you'll see, this paper is just the beginning of some really interesting forthcoming research and debate related to our question. With that said, let's get started...