There is a lot of chatter, especially on Policy 2.0, about possible solutions for the primary care shortage including business model changes as well as increasing incentives for medical school graduates to enter the field, however an option not getting much traction is the role nurse practitioners could potentially play.
The Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash. posted a really interesting article on expanding the roles of nurse practitioners to allow them to practice on their own, outside the scope of a physician practice group where most are typically found. One of the things I found most compelling about the article was a citation of a study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment which estimated that "nurse practitioners can deliver as much as 80 percent of the health services provided by primary-care physicians."
Given those numbers, expanding the roles of nurse practitioners should definitely be a potential solution to delve further into.
