Have you ever wondered why healthcare is so much more expensive in the United States than other similar countries? Let me propose that it is partially the fault of Congress, physicians, and other health care providers that are more interested in protecting turf than caring for patients. In the 1960’s Dr. Loretta Ford and Dr. Henry Silver developed the first Nurse Practitioner (NP) program at the University of Colorado, now referred to as Advanced Practice Registered Nurses. The purpose was to expand healthcare to those in under served areas and fill gaps. Nurse Practitioners do this by combining some practice aspects of medicine and some of nursing. This holistic approach to patient care has been adopted in other countries and has greatly expanded access to care.
What has been shown in repeated studies is that Nurse Practitioners provide high quality and cost-effective care. There are over 100,000 nurse practitioners in the U.S. and the number is growing. The problem is that some states significantly limit their practice and require collaborative agreements with physicians. The impact of this is that it increases cost and decreases the number of nurse practitioners.
There is currently a petition on the White House We the People website that request the barriers to advanced practice registered nurses be removed. There are only a few days left to sign the petition. If you care about access to affordable health care then this is important to sign the petition.
We petition the Obama administration to:
Remove barriers that prevent advanced practice registered nurses from practicing to their full scope.
Advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) have provided safe and effective care in the United States for over four decades. When the Affordable Care ACT (ACA) is fully implemented in 2014 over 30 million Americans will gain coverage under the law. APRNs currently have barriers to practice which include requirements for being supervised by or having a collaborative agreement with a physician, inability to admit patients into hospice or home health and restrictions on prescription of controlled drugs.There is currently a shortage of primary care physicians and the restriction to APRN practice limits patients access to care. Advanced practice registered nurses should be allowed to practice to their full scope of education and training.
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