title: The productivity and cost-efficiency of models for involving nurse practitioners in primary care: a perspective from queueing analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop simple stylized models for evaluating the productivity and cost-efficiencies of different practice models to involve nurse practitioners (NPs) in primary care, and in particular to generate insights on what affects the performance of these models and how.
  
  
  METHODS
  The productivity of a practice model is defined as the maximum number of patients that can be accounted for by the model under a given timeliness-to-care requirement; cost-efficiency is measured by the corresponding annual cost per patient in that model. Appropriate queueing analysis is conducted to generate formulas and values for these two performance measures. Model parameters for the analysis are extracted from the previous literature and survey reports. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate the model performance under different scenarios and to verify the robustness of findings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Employing an NP, whose salary is usually lower than a primary care physician, may not be cost-efficient, in particular when the NP's capacity is underutilized. Besides provider service rates, workload allocation among providers is one of the most important determinants for the cost-efficiency of a practice model involving NPs. Capacity pooling among providers could be a helpful strategy to improve efficiency in care delivery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The productivity and cost-efficiency of a practice model depend heavily on how providers organize their work and a variety of other factors related to the practice environment. Queueing theory provides useful tools to take into account these factors in making strategic decisions on staffing and panel size selection for a practice model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. nl2320@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: D'Aunno
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004526:Efficiency; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D008390:Markov Chains; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000078329:Workforce
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