Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius announced the Healthy People 2020 initiative on Dec. 2.  According to  Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, ''This milestone in disease prevention and health promotion creates an opportunity to leverage information technology to make Healthy People come alive for all Americans in their ...

Monday's Bismark (N.D.) Tribune ran a positive article introducing the role of nurse practitioners with a DNP to the public. ''Nurse Who Is Also a Doctor'' featured nurse practitioner Stacey Pfenning, who has a doctor of nursing practice degree. Although the article might lead to some confusion among careful readers about whether a DNP expands an ...

A nice article about nurse practitioners showed up in the New York City edition of yesterday's New York Times. Although titled ''Yes, the P.A. Will See You Now,'' the article looks at both physician assistant and NP roles, and it does a good job covering education, salary and job experience. The reporter does once refer to NPs and PAs as ...

The article starts out promising good PR for nurse practitioners: ''Peggy O'Donnell, a Lynbrook nurse practitioner, knows a thing or two about picking a good primary care physician.'' This is O'Donnell's opportunity to explain that an NP often can be your primary care provider — and even better, that there are studies that show that NP care is ...

  Opening my Providence (Rhode Island) Journal this morning (OK, online), I saw yet another report on physician objections to retail or convenient care clinics. The same article, but with different names, has been showing up about once a week somewhere in the country for the past 3 years. The article always cites physician charges that ...