Over the past 20 years, nurse practitioners (NPs) have become an increasingly important source of primary care in the United States. A shortage of primary care physicians, and changes being implemented under the federal health reform law will create an increased demand for primary care NPs. For this report, we used workforce survey data from the Health Professions Tracking Service at the University of Nebraska Medical Center from 2007-2011 to describe trends and characteristics of the primary care NP workforce in Nebraska. We found that the number of primary care NPs in Nebraska grew by 33% between 2007 and 2011, to a total of 293. However, to fill the demand that could be created by an aging population and the enactment of key provisions of the federal health reform law starting in 2014, Nebraska will need at least 314 NPs, which would require a larger growth rate than the state has seen since 2007.
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