By Caleb Taylor
ACRE Director and UCA Professor of Economics Dr. David Mitchell joined Americans for Prosperity-Arkansas on May 20th to discuss some of ACRE’s work in the recent legislative session.
Mitchell said ACRE experts speak to legislators and community groups “to show what the data actually shows on a variety of issues.”
Mitchell said:
The goal is to be that resource. We’re really open to talking to people about how we can make Arkansas better.”
Mitchell said he was “really excited” about legislation passed in the previous legislative session to expand scope of practice for nurse practitioners in Arkansas.
Mitchell said:
Arkansas is near the bottom for primary care. I was really excited that this year we had two really important bills that are going to help people in especially rural areas. There’s plenty of practitioners in more urban areas. The drive to see a provider is usually very far in rural areas so having more nurse practitioners is going to be great.”
You can listen to the full legislative recap with Americans for Prosperity-Arkansas here.
For more on Mitchell’s recent research and testimony on scope of practice issues, check out this ACRE Review post on March 17th.
For more on the topic, you can read “A Broad Consensus on Expanding Nurse Practitioners’ Scope of Practice” here.
You can also read another of Mitchell’s recent publications on this issue “Addressing Arkansas’s Health Services Shortages By Empowering Nurse Practitioners” here.
For more of ACRE’s research on nurse practitioners, check out our labor market regulation page.
Mitchell is also the co-author with Jordan Pfaff and Zachary Helms of an ACRE Policy Brief entitled “Solving Arkansas’s Primary Care Problems by Empowering Nurse Practitioners.”