AAPA Responds to Diabetes Study
AAPA president Gregor Bennett responded to the recent Annals of Family Medicine study, "Quality of Diabetes Care in Family Medicine Practices: Influence of Nurse-Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants," with a letter to Annals editor Kurt D. Stange, MD, PhD.
The full text of response letter is available on the AAPA Web site.
Here's an excerpt:
Dear Dr. Stange:
The article on diabetes care provided by physician-only practices and practices that employ either a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant (“Quality of Diabetes Care in Family Medicine Practices: Influence of Nurse-Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants” (sic), January/February 2008) is a good example of how quality care studies can be conducted to evaluate the team model of care. In today’s economic and health care environment, no provider is an island. It takes a team of professionals – whether employed by the practice or referred to by the primary health care provider – to provide comprehensive care.
To insinuate in the title of the article that NPs or PAs “influenced” the quality of diabetes care is a misstatement, though. The presence of a PA or NP in the practices studied was a co-occurrence. What evidence is there supporting that the PAs or NPs had any influence on the use of the guidelines?
Link to study
Link to letter