An 18-month study comparing a hospitalist group with a high physician assistant to physician ratio to one with a low ratio found no difference in clinical outcomes.
The study, conducted by researchers from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, followed two hospitalist groups at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md., and found no statistical difference inpatient mortality, hospital readmissions within 30 days, lengths of stay and specialty consultant use between the groups with low and high PA-physician ratios.
"We believe this is the first study of its kind to directly compare outcomes and costs between different staffing models using hospitalist PAs and hospitalist physicians. It shows that the expanded use of well-trained PAs within a formal PA-physician collaboration arrangement can provide similar clinical outcomes with lower costs, potentially allowing hospitalists to provide additional or different services," Henry Michtalik, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the lead author, said in a press release.
PAs in both groups were paired with a physician supervisor. Find out more here.
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