The nurse practitioner in Planned Parenthood clinics.

PIP: Nurse practitioners have become a major and virtually indispensable resource for women coming to clinics for family planning services. This new study of Planned Parenthood clinics shows that nurse practitioners serve more than 3/5 of all patients, at a cost considerably below that of physician care. (An estimated 3 million dollars a year is saved by using nurse practitioners.) These health workers insert IUDs and prescribe oral contraceptives and various other medications. Most have had between 12 and 18 weeks of formal training in family planning in addition to their nursing education. Salaries of nurse practitioners are only about 1/2 those of physicians in Planned Parenthood clinics.^ieng

Impact of family planning nurse practitioners.

A survey of family planning clinics shows that over half of responding clinics utilize the services of nurse practitioners and delegate to them considerable responsibility for patient care. Reported benefits from the use of family planning nurse practitioners as primary service providers include improved utilization of physician time, wider range of services, greater patient satisfaction, and increased patient volume. Findings indicate that family planning nurse practitioners have become an integral and important part of the family planning delivery system in the United States.

PIP: A questionnaire on the utilization of family planning nurse practitioners (FPNP) was conducted among 1900 Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare family planning grantee agencies. Of the 757 usable responses, slightly more than 1/2 indicated that they were employing FPNPs. A higher proportion of Planned Parenthood clinics (75%) versus clinics run by other types of agencies reported doing so. Clinics using FPNPs were asked which of a specific list of duties they performed. Considerable medical and training responsibilities seem to be delegated to the FPNPs. More than 90% of the clinics permitted their FPNPs to perform all routine aspects of contraceptive care except IUD insertion and removal; in 70% of the clinics, the FPNPs performed even these procedures. There is increasing willingness on the part of clinic directors and physicians to delegate more and more responsibility to the nurse practitioners. The responding agencies indicated their intent to hire more FPNPs in the future. Use of the FPNPs frees the physicians for more complicated medical duties and increases satisfaction with the clinics. The utilization of FPNPs also allowed clinics to provide new services, run more efficiently, and handle a larger volume of patients.