Advanced Practice Practitioners in Allergy & Immunology: Where Are We Now and Future Directions.

Abstract

There has been substantial growth of Advanced Practice Practitioners (APPs) in health care since their inception in the 1960's with APPs providing high quality and cost-effective care in a variety of medical settings. While most of the growth is in primary care, APPs are becoming increasingly leveraged in subspeciality care including Allergy & Immunology (A&I). At present there is limited literature on APPs in A&I specifically but there is growing literature on APP utilization and training in other specialties. Structured transition to practice programs (including onboarding programs and formal residency/fellowships) for APPs in other specialties are increasingly common and are associated with improved clinical productivity, practice autonomy, expertise, confidence, and decreased turn over. It would benefit A&I to adopt a similar approach as at present, the training and educational experiences APPs receive in A&I is quite varied. This article will review the training/certification of APPs, lessons learned from other specialties', what is known about the role of APPs in A&I and next steps for the future.