Hospital adds advanced-practice providers to ranks

By Cheryl Powell
Beacon Journal medical writer

When the medical staff executive committee helps chart the future of Akron Children’s Hospital, nurse practitioners sit side by side with doctors as peers. As the hospital’s pediatric neurosurgeon finishes a complex brain operation, he usually steps back and lets a physician assistant close the child’s head. And if a cancer patient has a problem in the middle of the night, an advanced-practice nurse or physician assistant often provides the care. The pediatric hospital increasingly is relying on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to deliver high-level care to its young patients. Hospitals nationwide are turning to these advanced-practice professionals to care for patients for a number of reasons, industry experts say. Among the factors contributing to this trend: An anticipated shortage of primary-care doctors, reductions in hours residents can work, and an expected increase in demand for medical services by aging baby boomers as well as people who will be newly insured through health-care reform.

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