3. The current emphasis on wellness as the overall goal of health care has placed considerable pressure on the health care educational system (Kreitzer, 2009). The wellness emphasis has caused the health care educational system to focus its attention on treating the entire patient and to provide the patient with the maximum amount of choice, quality, convenience, and personal care while maintaining affordability. This means that medical schools must begin to train more physicians interested in performing primary care services and to direct these physicians to areas of the country that have been traditionally poorly served. In order to develop an overall system where preventive medicine is practiced so that more serious medical difficulties can be avoided a solid network of primary care providers is necessary. Ideally, these providers would be in the form of licensed physicians but a system that utilizes a hybrid mixture of physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners would work as well in the interim. The education system must also begin adapting its curriculum so that its graduates and students are capable of assisting in the goal of maintaining overall wellness among the general public. Toward this end all health care professionals must begin integrating their services so that other disciplines concerns are both considered and addressed.
4. Federal and state health policies encourage the use of physician assistants and nurse practitioners in primary care positions in both private practice and hospital situations. Unfortunately, there is still considerable opposition from physicians...
The present data indicates that the care provided by PAs and NPs is comparable to physicians and that, as a result, the public's need for quality primary health care and the public policy supporting the goal of overall wellness demands that PAs and NPs be utilized as much as possible to supplement the availability of physicians. Studies have conclusively demonstrated that the use of PAs and NPs has helped to maintain quality health care and that both groups are more willing to serve the public in rural and less attractive urban areas. Utilization of PAs and NPs could alleviate many of the current problems besetting the delivery of health care in the areas that traditionally are underserved.
References
Cullen, T.J. (1997). The National Health Service Corps: Rural physician service and retention. Journal American Board Family Practice, 272-279.
Intitute of Medicine. (2001). Crossing the Quality Chasm: A new Health System for the 21st Century. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Kreitzer, M.J. (2009). Health Professions Education and Integrative Health Care. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Medicine Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public.
Krystal Knight, e. a. (2010). Health Centers' Contributions to Training Tomorrow's Physicians. Washington, D.C.: Division of Public Policy and Research National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc.
Human Resources: Health Care Personnel
