Scope-of-practice regulation of nurse practitioners in primary care
Citation: Xue Y, Ye Z, Brewer C, et al. Impact of state nurse practitioner scope-of-practice regulation on health care delivery: Systematic review. Nursing outlook. 2016 Jan 1;64(1):71-85.
Free to view: No
What is this? The COVID-19 pandemic is placing a strain on healthcare workers. Existing research on expanding the role of nurse practitioners may provide useful information for policy makers.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies evaluating the impact of scope-of-practice regulations on the delivery of primary health care by nurse practitioners. They restricted their searches to articles published in English and did the search in January 2015. They included 9 time-series analyses and 6 cross-sectional studies.
What was found: Less restrictive restrictions on nurse practitioners scope-of-practice may improve primary care capacity.
A large supply of nurse practitioners does not increase healthcare use, unless it is combined with scope-of-practice regulation that allow nurse practitioners to function independently.
The relationship between scope-of-practice regulations for nurse practitioners and healthcare costs is uncertain.