Nurse practitioner (NP) and physician assistant (PA) clinicians have long been a foundational part of most clinical teams.
This essential group of practitioners play a vital role in the continuum of care, and should be thoughtfully included in a facility’s staffing mix. The benefits of NP and PA roles, specifically within hospital medicine(HM), are clear:
Improved patient satisfaction
Having more providers available on the floor means more time dedicated to patients, which can significantly improve a patient’s perception of his or her care.
Better equipped to address social issues
Less acute patients may also have social needs such as transition back to home or family dynamics that need to be addressed. Due to their background and experience, NPs and PAs are often best equipped to handle these situations and can provide concentrated time assisting the patient and family.
Shared workload and top of license practice
Hospital medicine programs staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants working as part of highly-collaborative, physician-led teams allow each clinician to practice to the top of their license. NPs and PAs are able to address lower-acuity care needs, enabling physicians to have more capacity to deal with complex issues.
Increased throughput
The presence of nurse practitioners and physician assistants help increase throughput due to the presence of more clinicians than a program staffed by physicians alone.
Ease of recruiting
The shortage of qualified hospitalists make the use of NPs and PAs a medical necessity, a factor that is especially true of rural hospitals where recruiting and hiring NPs and PAs is oftentimes easier than attracting a hospital medicine physician.
Steps to Leverage NPs and PAs in Hospital Medicine Programs
Given these benefits, the question is not whether to use NPs and PAs but, instead, how to leverage their skills to optimize hospital medicine program performance and maximize its chances for success.
Three steps hospital medicine programs can take to better leverage this workforce is:
- Ensure NPs and PAs have the opportunity to practice to the top of their license and scope;
- Treat the appropriate patient population based on experience;
- Develop a clear path to escalate patients to the physician on-site as situations and circumstances demand.
Setting NPs and PAs up for success means ensuring they are part of highly-collaborative teams, have the support and education needed to treat the patient population, and are managing the right patients — those best suited to their training. Doing so helps guarantee NPs and PAs deliver a quality of care that is comparable to that of physicians.
The potential of NPs and PAs to ease workforce burdens, increase access to care, improve patient satisfaction, and better manage social issues makes it imperative that hospitals seriously consider the value in optimizing their HM program performance and maximizing its success.
Contact SCP Health to learn how we can make transitioning to this evolving care model a genuine reality.
If you are a nurse practitioner or physician assistant and would like to see available employment opportunities, browse all available careers here.
