Editor’s note: The following “Letter to the Editor” was first emailed to the Society of Hospital Medicine, its board president, and John Nelson, MD, MHM, the author of the article, “Hospitalist Roles for NPs and PAs,” which published in the January 2017 issue. All parties agreed to publish the email exchange in The Hospitalist.
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 9:59 AM
Subject: Offensive article on hospitalist roles for NPs, PAs
All,
I have been a hospitalist NP (nurse practitioner) for a decade and found the article in the January issue of The Hospitalist, Volume 21, Number 1, on the Hospitalist Roles for NPs and PAs, offensive and uninformed, with an intolerable amount of personal opinion not backed by research.
I am disappointed that The Hospitalist would publish such a low-class article. Your [magazine] promotes membership to all APPs (advanced practice providers), yet you publish articles that show a study with a positive finding yet allow and highlight an incredibly negative and offensive snippet. The highlighted box states that “Any group that thinks this study is evidence that adding more APPs and having them manage a high number of patients relatively independently will go well in any setting is MISTAKEN … But it does offer a STORY of one place where, with careful planning and execution, it went OK.”
I can only say that the physicians, APPs, and hospital group who did this study would likely also be offended for taking their study and turning it into a “story.”
EDUCATE yourselves. There are numerous studies out there showing care by APP’s is cost effective, efficient, and with excellent care outcomes. There is a national group, APPex (Advanced Practice Provider Executives), that can give you all the studies you would want showing this information. Or contact the national NP or PA groups.
I am a working hospitalist NP and appreciate my physician colleagues and have their respect. This “John” person obviously doesn’t respect APPs and to publish him is just disheartening.
This publication could have and should have done better. You have one APP on your editorial advisory board – it appears you need more.
Marci Harris, MSN, FNP, ACNP
Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
Hospitalist/Internal Medicine
McKee Medical Center, Loveland, Colo.
Dr. Nelson responds:
Thanks for your message, Marci. It seems clear you’ve thought a lot about NPs and PAs in hospitalist practices and have arrived at conclusions that differ from what I wrote. Your voice and views are welcome.
I certainly didn’t intend to offend anyone, including those who might see all of this very differently from me.
As I mention in the first paragraph, I’m very supportive of NPs and PAs in hospitalist practices. And I wanted to write about this particular study precisely because it provides data that is very supportive of their contributions.
The point I was trying to make in the column is that there is value in careful planning around roles and who does what. A sports team could recruit the most talented players but still won’t perform well if they don’t develop and execute a good plan around who does what and how they work together. Simply having talented people on the team isn’t enough. I think the same is true of hospitalist teams.
The hospitalist group in the study has an impressively detailed plan for new provider (APC and MD alike) orientation and has a lot of operating processes that help ensure the PAs and MDs work effectively together. My experience is that many hospitalists groups have never developed such a plan.
John Nelson, MD, MHM
Partner, Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants, Bellevue, Wash.