Nurse practitioners fill key role in Tennessee

The number and roles of nurse practitioners is expanding to include more who work in retail clinics or for care-support firms that offer guidance to the chronically ill over the telephone. As a result, doctors' groups are calling for updated rules that would give them more supervision over the nurse practitioners. In Tennessee, state health professionals are now weighing whether changes are needed. Under Tennessee rules, nurse practitioners are restricted to practicing in the same area of medicine as their supervising physician, and what they can do is determined by written guidelines developed with the supervising doctor.