Medical Xpress October 28, 2023
Nurse practitioners are just as good as primary care doctors at avoiding potentially harmful prescriptions for older patients—but both need to do better, a large, new study suggests.
Nurse practitioners (NPs) are registered nurses with advanced training in doing many of the same things doctors do, including diagnosing diseases and devising treatment plans. As the United States continues to face a shortage of primary care doctors, NPs have been critical to filling that gap.
One sticking point has been prescribing medications. Many U.S. states allow NPs full prescribing authority, while some limit the kinds of drugs they can prescribe or require them to be overseen by a doctor.
Opposition to NP prescribing generally falls along the lines of patient safety—that...
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