Many countries have health-care providers who are not trained as physicians but who take on many of the diagnostic and clinical functions of medical doctors. We identified non-physician clinicians (NPCs) in 25 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, although their roles varied widely between countries. In nine countries, numbers of NPCs equalled or exceeded numbers of physicians. In general NPCs...

The editorial "Non-physician Clinicians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Evolving Role of Physicians" by Eyal et al describes non-physician clinicians' (NPC) need for mentorship and support from physicians. We emphasise the same need of support for front line generalist primary healthcare providers who carry out complex tasks yet may have an inadequate skill mix.

T his Letter is in reference to the article by KD Rao et al., ‘‘As good as physicians: patient perceptions of physicians and non-physician clinicians in rural primary health centers in India,’’ published in the November 2013 edition of Global Health: Science and Practice (GHSP). The authors have to be lauded for their efforts to produce evidence on patient perceptions of care provided by non-ph...

Thirty years' experience in the US with non-physician clinicians shows they can deliver quality care.

BACKGROUND In determining whether clinical decision support (CDS) should be interruptive or non-interruptive, CDS designers need more guidance to balance the potential for interruptive CDS to overburden clinicians and the potential for non-interruptive CDS to be overlooked by clinicians. OBJECTIVE (1)To compare performance achieved by clinicians using interruptive CDS versus using similar, no...

The Cutaneous Procedures Adverse Events Reporting (CAPER) Registry is a patient safety database that collects data on adverse events associated with procedures performed by dermatologists, non-dermatologist physicians, and non-physicians. Included are skin cancer surgery, laser, cosmetic procedures. A steering committee composed of board-certified clinicians, researchers from the American Socie...