Physician-Nurse Practitioner Teamwork in Primary Care Practices in New York: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Primary care practices increasingly rely on the growing workforce of nurse practitioners (NPs) to meet primary care demand. Understanding teamwork between NPs and physicians in primary care practices is critically important.

We assessed teamwork between NPs and physicians practicing within the same primary care practice and determined how teamwork affects their job satisfaction, intent to leave their current job, and quality of care.

A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from both NPs and physicians in New York State in 2017.

584 participants (398 NPs and 186 physicians) from 476 primary care practices completed the survey yielding a 27% response rate for NPs and 12% for physicians.

The survey tool contained validated measures of teamwork and three outcomes: job satisfaction, intent to leave, and perceived quality of care. Simple and multi-level multivariable regression models were built.

Most participants (76%) were either moderately satisfied or very satisfied with their job (NP sample: 75%; physician sample: 77%) and about 10% intended to leave their current job (NP sample: 11%; physician sample: 9%). The average perceived quality of care was the same across NP and physician samples with a mean of 8.5 on a 11 point scale. After controlling for confounders, a higher organizational-level teamwork score was associated with higher job satisfaction (cumulative OR: 3.00; 95% CI: 1.85-4.88), lower odds of intent to leave (OR: 0.25; 95% CI: 0.09-0.74), and higher perceived quality of care (b=1.00; 95% CI: 0.77-1.23).

This study produced evidence about NP-physician teamwork in primary care practices. We found the vast majority of NPs and physicians reported favorable teamwork, and that teamwork affects clinician job satisfaction and intent to leave as well as perceived quality of care in their practices.