Conclusion
NPs' and PAs' views on their ethics preparedness, ethics confidence,
and degree of physician collegiality, practice autonomy, and
patient-related demands are all important indicators of perceived
quality care delivery in primary care practice. Educating these
providers for the ethical challenges of providing healthcare in a cost
constrained environment will require innovative educational models
that address healthcare management, economics, leadership, decisional
analysis, collaborative practice and teamwork, and critically,
ethical reasoning in clinical practice in tandem with their medical
counterparts. Ethics education and attention to the importance of an
ethical organizational climate should help to prepare future NPs and
PAs to better address the ethical challenges they will face as primary
care providers consistent with the Patient Affordable Care Act and the
increasingly chronically ill and aging population.