Nurse Practitioner - Beginnings, Education And Licensure Requirements, Current Roles And Functions, Future Of The Nurse Practitioner

Nurse practitioners play an increasingly important role in providing health care in the United States. Nurse practitioner Marilyn Graham (left) prepares to give three-month-old Donovan Washington a check-up in Arlington, Texas on August 30, 2000. (AP photo Donna McWilliam.)

Health care demands are often the driving force behind the emergence of new and modified positions within the field. In the 1960s the United States began to experience a significant reduction in the number of physicians. Coupled with increasing patient acuity (increasingly ill patients) and funding cutbacks, new types of positions as well as expansions of roles already within the system were introduced into the health care system.