Advanced Practice Provider-Physician Collaboration and Medical Staff Governance: A Framework for Patient Safety

The growth of advanced practice providers (APPs) is occurring in parallel with persistent and projected physician shortages. One important solution and increasingly visible response to these workforce challenges is the expanding role of APPs. Strong physician-APP partnerships can help distribute workload, improve access, and support sustainable practice with the delivery of safe, quality patient care. The future of clinical care will depend on effective APP-physician collaboration grounded in sound credentialing, clearly defined supervision and practice expectations, and robust medical staff monitoring programs. We describe the governance and oversight processes in a large health care system to assess and support APP competence to protect patients and promote an environment of safe patient care in the hospital setting. Robust credentialing and privileging processes are essential to ensure that APPs are qualified and able to deliver safe, high-quality, and evidence-based care across health care settings.