Healthcare professionals in the United States are categorized into different segments depending on the specific roles that they play in the provision of healthcare services. There are three major professionals managed by different associations. The major healthcare providers are divided into nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician assistants. This article entails a discussion on the analysis of the national associations for the professionals listed above. The discussion focuses on the number of members, growth, name and the roles played by each association members in filling the medical gap created in the rural areas.
One of the major national professional nurse practitioners’ association in the United States is the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). The association is the biggest in the United States for nursing practitioners with a total membership of 270, 000 licensed practitioners (AANP, n.d.). According to reports for the association college for nursing 26,000 new NPs were recruited between 2016 and 2017. This was an increase from 23,698 from 2015. Members of the association work in different settings ranging from outpatient units to private settings. The association fills the professional gap in that they have about 4.3% of their workers in community-based health centers.
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The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) is one of the major professional societies for physician assistants in the United States. The association represents about 123,000 professional physician assistants. In terms of growth, the AAPA gets an annual increase of approximately 4.7% in the entrance to the workforce ( Hooker & Muchow, 2014). As pertains to the job outlook, it is expected that the number of physician assistants will increase by about 37% by the year 2026. Despite their knowledge in the medical field physician assistants have been credited with filling the medical gap in the rural areas where there is a scarcity of specialists.
Another registered association of healthcare professionals is the National Association of Certified Midwives (NACM). The first certificates of registration for the association were issued in the year 1994. By the year 2014, the number of registered midwives within the association stood at 2454. This means that out of six midwives, one is a member of the NACM (NACPM, 2014). An example where nurse-midwives fill the gaps left by physician specialists is in Alabama which initially had 45 healthcare facilities offering maternity services at the rural level by the year 1994 . However, by 2014, that number had declined to 16 creating a wider gap (NACPM, 2014). The solution has been found where nurse-midwives from the NACM have stepped in and proven effective in the provision of specialist maternity services.
References
American Association of Nurse Practitioners (n.d.). About NPs and AANP. Retrieved from https://www.aanp.org/about
Hooker, R. S., & Muchow, A. N. (2014). Supply of physician assistants: 2013-2026. Journal of the American Academy of PAs , 27 (3), 39-45.
Kenda, A (2017). Physician assistants filling gaps in rural health care: Arkansas Public Media , Retrieved from https://www.arkansaspublicmedia.org/post/physician-assistants-filling-gaps-rural-health-care
National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (2014). History of Certified Professional Midwifery and NACPM. Retrieved from http://nacpm.org/about-cpms/who-are-cpms/
