A novel inpatient PA staffing model for a community hospital

Link to article at PubMed

JAAPA. 2021 Nov 25. doi: 10.1097/01.JAA.0000795020.20041.2e. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Objective: We sought to create a novel physician assistant (PA) and physician hospital medicine co-management strategy, employing a 3:1 PA:physician structure, under which the physician oversees all PA patients, but without a separate independent panel.Methods: This is a retrospective cohort pre-post design, comparing metrics for a traditional physician-only hospitalist model with a PA-physician team model. Outcomes included length of stay (LOS), readmissions, discharge destination, patient satisfaction, and in-hospital mortality.Results: LOS for patients under the PA-physician model (74 hours) was lower than for the physician-only model (83 hours; P < .001). The PA-physician model team discharged more patients home than to another facility (PA-physician 77.6%, physician-only 74.3%; P = .03). Thirty-day readmissions were about 10% (P = .97) and patients reported respectful treatment in about 80% (P = .53) of cases in each cohort.Conclusions: Our 3:1 PA-physician model team showed equal to superior outcomes compared with the physician-only hospitalist model.

PMID:34845170 | DOI:10.1097/01.JAA.0000795020.20041.2e

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