A comparison of the practice patterns of emergency department teams that include physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants

Background: Physicians see most emergency department (ED) patients, but, recently, nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) have provided an increasing amount of ED care. Purpose: Compare NP and PA teams' practice patterns to physician teams in EDs.Methods: Using 12 years of data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (20 09-2020), we used multivariate regression analysis to separately examine the associations between the ED practice patterns (i.e., number of diagnostic services, number of procedures, waiting time, boarding time, length of visit, and hospital admission) of patients seen by NP or PA teams compared with physician teams.Discussion: Patient visits to NP and PA teams received fewer diagnostic services and procedures, had shorter visits, and were less likely to be hospitalized.Conclusion: If the additional diagnostic services, procedures, and hospital admission provided by physician teams were unnecessary for the patients studied, NP and PA team care could be more efficient.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.