Study: NPs as safe as physicians in prescribing meds for seniors

Nurse practitioners prescribe as safely for seniors as primary care physicians, according to a study. Published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the study is the largest to date comparing the prescribing patterns of PCPs and NPs. The Stanford Medicine researchers analyzed the prescribing patterns of 73,000 PCPs and NPs in 29 states where NPs had prescriptive authority from 2013-2019. They found both groups averaged approximately 1.7 inappropriate prescriptions for every 100 prescriptions written. The researchers concluded policy-makers should focus efforts on addressing unsafe prescribing among all providers, rather than limiting independent prescriptive authority to physicians. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Science Foundation funded the study. (Stanford Medicine news release, 10/24/23)