More and more medical centers are relying on hospitalists — hospital-based internal medicine specialists who coordinate the complex care of inpatients. Now, an 18-month study comparing two hospitalist groups — one with a high physician assistant (PA)-to-physician ratio (“expanded PA”) and one with a low PA-to-physician ratio (“conventional”) — has found no significant differences in key clinical outcomes achieved by both groups.
The results of what is believed the first study of its kind suggest that hospitals can safely lower the cost of hospitalist programs without sacrificing quality of care, the investigators say.
A detailed report on the study at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland, published in the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management in October 2016, reveals no statistically significant differences in patient mortality, hospital readmissions within 30 days, lengths of stay and specialty consultant use among patients treated by the expanded PA group and those treated by the conventional group.
