In the face of acute primary care physician shortages and steady reductions in the number of physicians who are willing to accept Medicaid and Medicare, it is unclear whether our existing primary care system will be able to meet the needs of a universally-insured nation, as President Obama has expressed as a priority for his Administration.

Healthcare delivery is strained under tremendous pressure from the demands of chronic health issues, downward trends in third party payments, and while insurance coverage will address some of these issues, many of these problems may persist even if universal insurance coverage is achieved in the United States. So what else needs to happen to make healthcare reform a success?

In recent years, a series of “disruptive innovations” in the healthcare sector have capitalized on non-physician providers, such as nurse practitioners, and their ability to provide high-quality primary and preventive care in retail-based settings such as Convenient Care Clinics (also known as retail-based clinics) and in community-settings, such as Nurse-Managed Health Centers.

Research in Health Affairs and other peer-reviewed journals has documented that retail based clinics and Nurse-Managed Health Centers provide safe, accessible, affordable care to millions of Americans without threatening continuity of care. Nurse practitioners practicing in these independent settings already touch millions of people annually.

Thanks to regulatory reforms that have taken place over decades, including those led by governors in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, nurse practitioners are legally authorized to prescribe medications and provide care that is a comparable in scope to that of a primary care physician in all 50 states.

Consumers gravitate to both models because they are accessible, affordable, provide quality care but most importantly, they are convenient in their locations, hours and ease of use. For healthcare reform to be successful, we need to embrace these disruptive innovations. We also need to maximize the amazing, high-quality provider workforce we educate in our finest academic institutions across the country.

Nurse practitioners and other non-physician providers (such as physician assistants, pharmacists, and psychologists) are eager to partner with their physician colleagues to expand access to care for all Americans and make the Administration’s healthcare reform effort the success it needs to be!

Tine Hansen-Turton blogs at Disruptive Women in Health Care.