A Nurse Practitioner's View

Today's New York Times has an article about the Medical Home concept. These projects are becoming more popular as insurers are deciding to cover the costs. The article refers to a patient who visited his very busy physician that missed a stroke diagnosis because of a hurried exam. While mostly inexcusable, it provides a real life example of the issues occurring every single day due to the system's lack of access, communication, reimbursement, and high-quality. While the article doesn't make specific reference to NPs , Senators from New Mexico, Iowa, Alaska and Maine recently discussed expansion of Medical Home projects to include NPs , and other non-physician providers of primary care to lead medical home demonstrations. Senator Bingamin of New Mexico sums it by saying: Furthermore, nurse practitioners epitomize the delivery of high quality, cost-effective primary care that is crucial to the medical homes model. Senator Murkowski of Alaska adds: Nurse practitioners funct...

Medgadget recently had the opportunity to interview the president-elect of the AMA, a cardiologist. Someone obviously with the finger on the pulse of primary care. One of the hot topics that he was asked about was the bleak outlook on primary care. This is from the interview: Q: Here's a question from one of our editors, Nick Genes. He's a resident of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Many pundits and experts believe that the US government will improve access to primary care (one way or another) in the next 2-5 years. The Massachusetts experiment suggests there will not be enough primary care doctors to cover the increased demand. Already, primary care doctors are overworked and under compensated, with many leaving the field or choosing specialty training instead. How is the AMA planning to respond to this challenge? A: ... We continue to mention the importance of trained primary care, and I should also mention the AMA created the scope of practice partnership, b...

Picture this: hundreds of patients braving the elements, lining up for access to a free healthcare clinic, dozens of healthcare professional volunteers offering their time to provide medical, dental and vision services and thousands of dollars in donated medical supplies. Sound like a medical corps serving a third world country? Guess again. Its happening in Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. Tonight, 60 Minutes ran an updated story about Remote Area Medical (RAM) . This is an amazing volunteer organization started by Stan Brock. His original intention was to help injured and sick people in desolate parts of the world. Now, a large part of the people being helped are right in our own backyard. What does that say about the state of healthcare today? The news piece also highlights NP volunteer Teresa Gardner providing women's health services to those in need. She counsels and treats a patient that hasn't followed up in 3 years status post cervical cancer surgery. Sadly, these s...

Hi All, I will be on vacation for the next week! So, I won't be posting. I know I know for all of the few readers out there you'll just have to find another way to spend your time! :-) In the meantime, here is a nice press release from the AANP regarding their recent conference that was attended by more than 3000 NPs. Stephen (Image via flickr)