Patterson 1

Abigail Patterson

Annotation Practice: APA Style

Kurtzman, E. T., & Barnow, B. S. (2017). A Comparison of Nurse Practitioners, Physician

Assistants, and Primary Care Physicians’ Patterns of Practice and Quality of Care in

Health Centers. Medical Care, 55(6), 615–622. https://doi.org/10.1097

Kurtzman utilizes data from 5 years of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to

perform multivariate regression analysis to compare the impact of receiving NP or PA

provided care vs that of a MD or DO. She uses the data analysis to come to the

conclusion that there is no difference in patient outcomes based on the education

level of the provider who treated them. The data used in this study appears to be accurate

and unbiased because of its third-party source. This source appears to be written for an

academic audience, with a primary intention to inform those with impact in the

field, like lawmakers or managers, of the safety and efficacy of midlevel providers. The

primary source of Kurtzman's article was determined due to the publication location

and the type of language Kurtzman uses in her paper. The primary author, Kurtzman, is

an expert in the field of public health. However, she could be perceived as having bias

due to her licensure as a Nurse Practitioner and affiliation with the Association of

Nursing fellows. However, the conclusions she draws in her article are fair and based on

existing data. Additionally, Kurtzman does not use personal opinions, nor does she

attempt to convince or persuade. Rather, she uses existing data to perform a data analysis

and draws conclusions based on that.