Nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) have played a vital role in delivering high-quality healthcare in the United States for more than five decades. As hospitals and health systems face growing workforce shortages, rising operational pressures, and increasing patient complexity, clinical collaboration in patient care has become central to sustaining effective and efficient care delivery—making it more important than ever to attract, train, and properly optimize this workforce.

Clinical collaboration in patient care enables nurse practitioners and physician assistants to function as fully integrated members of team-based care models. When collaboration is intentionally designed and supported, care teams are better positioned to work at the top of their licenses, strengthen coordination, and deliver consistent, high-quality care. For healthcare organizations seeking scalable, long-term solutions, advancing collaboration across clinical roles is essential.

What remains unclear for many organizations is how to operationalize this collaboration in a way that is both practical and sustainable.

The question, which this paper will endeavor to answer, is how?