Loading...
Emergency departments increasingly are turning to midlevel providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to help bridge the provider gap as patient volume increases. These authors reviewed data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to quantify changes in midlevel provider practice in EDs from 1997 to 2006.
The proportion of ED patients seen by midlevel providers increased from 6% in 1997 to 13% in 2006, representing an increase from 5.2 million to 15.2 million patients. The proportion of EDs that used midlevel providers increased from 28% to 77%. Although most patients seen by midlevel providers were triaged to lower-urgency categories, 11% were triaged to the highest category and 8% were admitted to th…