Commentary: a controlled trial of nurse practitioners in intensive care

In this issue of Pediatrics (pages 1143-1148), there is an article by Mitchell-DiCenso et al entitled "A Controlled Trial of Nurse Practitioners in Neonatal Intensive Care." The clinical nurse specialists/nurse practitioners (CNS/NPs) as well as the controls (pediatric residents) were supervised by neonatologists or neonatal trainees. The CNS/NPs provided care for their patients during the day while the residents provided 24 hours per day care for their patients and evening and night coverage for the CNS/NPs' patients. The authors measured diverse outcome variables including mortality, neonatal complications, quality of care, parental satisfaction, costs, etc, and concluded that the CNS/NPs and pediatric residents were similar with respect to all tested measures of performance.