At the 2025 Budget Proposal, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a policy that would greatly benefit nurse practitioners.
"Giving full practice authority to highly educated, highly qualified nurse practitioners who work under a licensed physician for at least three years,” said Shapiro.
It's a policy that's been debated for years, but Shapiro said it could help rural areas access much needed healthcare.
“In rural counties, there is one primary care physician for every 522 residents,” said Shapiro.
For the federal government’s largest group of employees — nurses caring for military veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs — the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer and its looming Thursday deadline come amid longstanding staffing shortages, deemed severe at more than half of all facilities.
Unions are discouraging nurses from accepting the offer, and leaders say an exodus would directly and immediately affect the care of its 9.1 million enrolled veterans.
“We’re already facing a staffing crisis in our hospitals,” said Irma Westmoreland, a registered nurse who heads the Veterans Affairs unit for National Nurses United. “We cannot afford to lose any more staff.”
A cohort study of hospitalized patients found that race and rurality have an impact on healthcare-associated infection (HAI) risk and outcomes, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.