New capability enables healthcare organizations to measure advanced practice providers and allied health professionals against the same evidence-based standards of care as physicians
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other non-physician clinicians assume an increasingly larger role in U.S. healthcare delivery, Motive Medical Intelligence (Motive), a leading healthcare performance solutions company, has expanded its Practicing Wisely clinician performance measurement system to include advanced practice providers (APPs) and allied health professionals (AHPs).
The expansion enables healthcare organizations to evaluate individual APPs and AHPs against the same evidence-based standards of care used to measure physicians, providing a more complete view of clinician performance as care teams continue to evolve.
Until now, most measurement programs have focused primarily on physician performance or the cost of care delivered by non-physician clinicians. Motive’s expanded capability measures the appropriateness and quality of clinical decision-making regardless of whether care is delivered by a physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or other qualified clinician.
APPs, including nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs), and AHPs such as certified nurse midwives, physical and occupational therapists, and dietitians are filling critical gaps created by physician shortages and rising demand for healthcare driven by the nation’s aging population. As healthcare delivery becomes increasingly team-based, healthcare organizations need consistent, evidence-based performance measurement across all clinicians who make diagnostic and treatment decisions.
The need for comprehensive clinician measurement is growing rapidly:
- A 2025 Columbia University School of Nursing workforce analysis found that the NP workforce grew an average of 10% annually between 2019 and 2023, outpacing physician assistants (8.6%) and physicians (1.1%).
- According to a 2023 BMJ study, the proportion of Medicare outpatient evaluation and management visits delivered by NPs and PAs increased from 14% in 2013 to 25.6% in 2019, with nearly 42% of Medicare patients seeing an NP or PA at least once.
- Between 2016 and 2022, only 56% of clinicians providing primary care services were physicians, while 44% were non-physician providers.
- Among adults under age 65 with employer-sponsored insurance, office visits to primary care physicians declined 18% between 2012 and 2016, while visits to NPs and PAs increased 129%.
At the same time, education, training, and scope-of-practice requirements for APPs and AHPs vary by profession and state, making consistent, evidence-based performance measurement increasingly important to ensure patients receive the right care, at the right time, regardless of who delivers it.
“The healthcare delivery landscape is changing rapidly, and initiatives to improve provider performance and reduce waste must reflect that,” said Julie Scherer, Ph.D., Chief Solutions Officer at Motive. “We know that the clinical decisions made at the point of care drive quality and cost. Like physicians, APPs and AHPs make those decisions every day, and measuring them against the same evidence-based standards is essential to reducing waste and elevating quality of care.”
Validated Against Real-World Performance Data
Motive’s expanded measures evaluate APPs and AHPs only on the services they are licensed to perform — such as medication management, laboratory ordering, wellness visits, and prenatal screening — using the same nationally recognized standards of care that govern physician practice.
Before expanding Practicing Wisely, Motive’s clinical and data science teams analyzed performance across physicians, APPs, and AHPs and found remarkably consistent patterns. APPs and AHPs demonstrated comparable averages, variation, and performance ranges across measures, while consistently performing well in the same clinical environments where physicians performed well.
“Healthcare is a team sport, and the data bears that out,” continued Scherer. “Where you see high-performing physicians, you tend to see high-performing APPs and AHPs. Where you see variation among physicians, you see the same variation among APPs and AHPs. Measuring everyone, individually, who renders care — to a single, evidence-based standard — is the only way to drive meaningful improvement at scale.”
Practicing Wisely in Action
Practicing Wisely is an evidence-based clinician performance measurement system designed to help healthcare organizations reduce unwarranted variation in care and address the more than $400 billion in annual healthcare waste associated with unnecessary and low-value services.
Using clinician-level performance insights, payers and providers can identify the clinicians, services, and care patterns representing the greatest opportunities for cost containment and quality improvement, enabling targeted strategies to improve care while reducing unnecessary spending. Organizations using Practicing Wisely have identified multimillion-dollar opportunities to reduce waste, strengthen adherence to evidence-based care, and support value-based payment initiatives by focusing improvement efforts where they can deliver the greatest impact.
About Motive Medical Intelligence
Motive Medical Intelligence is redefining healthcare performance analytics with an emphasis on transparency, clinician trust, and real-world actionability. Motive is the partner of choice for organizations committed to eliminating low-value care and thriving in value-based care models. Through its proprietary Practicing Wisely solution, Motive is helping the industry eliminate the $400 billion in annual waste in the U.S. health system, advancing the transition to high-value, patient-centered care, and achieving the quadruple aim. Learn more here.
Media: Supreme Communications for Motive Medical Intelligence: [email protected]
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SOURCE Motive Medical Intelligence
