title: Cultivating the Role of Nurse Practitioners in Providing Primary Care to Vulnerable Populations in an Era of Health-Care Reform.
abstract: The evolving role of nurse practitioners (NPs) as primary care providers, especially for vulnerable populations, is central to the debate regarding strategies to address the growing need for primary care services. The current article provides policy recommendations for leveraging and expanding the historic role of NPs in caring for vulnerable populations, by focusing on three key policy levers: NP scope-of-practice regulation, distribution of the NP workforce, and NP education. These policy levers must go hand in hand to build a sufficient and equitably distributed NP workforce, to help meet the escalating need for primary care in an era of health-care reform.
authors.affiliation: University of Rochester School of Nursing, Rochester, NY, USA ying_xue@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA Canandaigua VA Medical Center, Canandaigua, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Orna
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Intrator
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000458:organization & administration*; D024802:Nurse's Role; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States; D035862:Vulnerable Populations
keywords: nurse practitioners; primary care; vulnerable populations