title: New health professions after a decade and a half: delegation, productivity and costs in primary care.
abstract: Though knowledge about physician's assistants and nurse practitioners is far from conclusive, these new health practitioners (NHPs) appear to perform a large percentage of primary care services at a high level of quality and productivity. Moreover, the gap between the physician/NHP substitution ratio and the NHP/physician cost ratio seems wide enough to assure cost savings when NHPs are used well.
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004526:Efficiency; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009722:Nurse Practitioners; D010823:Physician Assistants; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000191:economics; D011364:Professional Practice; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D000078329:Workforce