‘She taught me’: factors consumers find important in nurse practitioner and pharmacist prescriber services

BACKGROUND: Advanced practitioner services, such as those nurse practitioners and pharmacist prescribers provide, are an opportunity to improve health care delivery. In New Zealand, these practitioners remain underutilised, despite research suggesting they offer safe and effective care, and considerable international literature recording patient satisfaction with these roles. This study aimed to explore factors underlying consumer satisfaction with primary health care nurse practitioner and pharmacist prescriber services. METHODS: As part of a larger realist evaluation, 21 individuals receiving advanced practitioner services participated in semi-structured interviews. These interviews were transcribed and coded against context–mechanism–outcome configurations tested and refined throughout the research. RESULTS: Study findings emphasise the importance of consumer confidence in the provider as a mechanism for establishing advanced practitioner roles. Underlying this confidence is a recognition that these practitioners work in a more accessible manner, engage at the individual’s ‘level’, and operate with passion. CONCLUSIONS: This research offers learnings to re-engineer service delivery within primary health care to make best use of the entire health care team by including consumers in the design and introduction of new roles.