• 96.5% of nurse practitioners prescribe and write an average of 19 prescriptions a day¹
• Nurse practitioners serve as primary and specialty care providers, providing a blend of nursing and health care services to patients and families.²
• Nurse practitioners are reimbursed for patient care and were granted Medicare provider status in 1997 ²
• Nurse practitioners accept and sign for samples ²
• Nurse practitioners diagnose and treat disease ²
• Nurse practitioners support compliance with clinical practice³ 
• Nurse practitioners support diabetes guidelines processes more than PAs or MDs⁴
• Nurse practitioners practice independently or in collaboration with physicians in all 50 states, but varies significantly from state to state⁵
• Nurse practitioners affect medication adherence
• Through disease management programs in blood coagulation clinics⁶
• Through patient call programs in community practice settings⁷     
• In chronic cardiovascular disease⁸
• Through rheumatology clinical nurse specialist consultation, reporting high patient satisfaction⁹
• Nurse practitioners improve patient outcomes through nurse-led multidisciplinary teams
• Resulting in improved QOL and medication adherence in patients with intermittent claudication¹⁰ 
• Reporting significantly fewer deaths after 4.5 years in nurse-led clinics, than in the original intervention group and a trend toward fewer coronary events (for example, coronary deaths and non-fatal myocardial infarctions).¹¹ 
• Nurse practitioners meet patients’ needs in a variety of primary care, acute care and specialty care settings¹²

• Nurse practitioners meet patients’ needs in a variety of primary care, acute care and specialty care settings¹³
• Patients report high satisfaction with nurse practitioner primary care compared to MD primary care¹⁴
• 280 Nurse Practitioners are independent clinicians with their own practice¹⁵
• This number is higher when you consider those NPs who practice within many long-term care settings where NPs are often the only prescriber on site
• The Cleveland Clinic Preventive Cardiology and Rehabilitation program has progressed toward an Advanced Practice Nurse-managed clinic for the past 5 years.¹⁶
• In a randomized trial of 1368 patients in a comparison of patients seeing NP’s or MD’s in 10 general practices¹⁷
• Generally, patients consulting nurse practitioners were significantly more satisfied with their care
• The number of prescriptions issued, investigations ordered, referrals to secondary care, and reattendances were similar between the two groups.
• Patients managed by nurse practitioners reported receiving significantly more information about their illnesses and, in all but one practice, their consultations were significantly longer.

References

¹ AANP Member data, http://www.aanp.org/NR/rdonlyres/0313B5B2-325A-4B66-A3C6-569902C3837E/0/AANPNPFactsLogo09.pdf

² U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos083.htm

³ Gracias et al. Critical Care Nurse Practitioners Improve Compliance with Clinical Practice Guidelines in “Semiclosed” Surgical Intensive Care Unit. J Nurs Care Qual     2008;23(4)338-344

⁴ Ohman-Strickland P et al . Quality of Diabetes Care in Family Medicine Practices Influence of Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants. Ann Fam Med 2008;6:14-22

⁵ Pearson LJ. The Pearson Report AmJNursPract 2009;13(2)4-82

⁶ Huber C. et al. A Tool to Assess Compliance in Anticoagulation Management. AHRQ grant 2008

⁷ Cook et al. Telephone Counseling to Improve Osteoporosis Treatment Adherence: An Effectiveness Study in Community Practice Settings. Am J Med Quality;2007;22;445

⁸ Albert. Improving Medication Adherence in Chronic Cardiovascular Disease. Crit Care Nurse 2008;28:54-64

⁹ Homer et al. Providing patients with information about disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs: Individually or in groups? A pilot randomized controlled trial comparing adherence and satisfaction. Musco Care online 15Sep2008

¹⁰ Hatfield et al. Nurse-led risk assessment/management clinics reduce predicted cardiac morbidity and mortality in claudicants. J VascNurs 2008;26(4)118-122

¹¹ Murchie,P et al.  Running nurse-led secondary prevention clinics for coronary heart disease in primary care: qualitative study of health professionals' perspectives. Br J Gen Pract 2005; 55(516): 522–528

¹⁴ Horrocks S et al. Systematic Review of Whether Nurse Practitioners Working in primary Care Can Provide Equivalent Care to Doctors. BMJ 2002;324:819-23

¹⁵ Personal communication

¹⁶ Gambino, Katherine K  et al. Transition Toward a Nurse Practitioner-Managed Clinic; The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing: March/April 2009;24(2)pp 132-139

¹⁷ Kinnersley, P. et al. Randomised controlled trial of nurse practitioner versus general practitioner care for patients requesting "same day" consultations in primary care; BMJ 2000; 320:1043-1048