Experience with physician assistants in a Canadian arthroplasty program

Description: In this study, PAs “saved� their supervising physician about 204 hours per year; this time can be used for other clinical, administrative or research duties. Physician assistants are regarded as important members of the health care team by surgeons, nurses, orthopedic residents and patients. When we compared the billing costs with those that would have been generated by the use of GP surgical assists, PAs were essentially cost neutral. Furthermore, they potentially freed GPs from the operating room to spend more time delivering primary care. We found that use of the double operating room model facilitated by PAs increased the surgical throughput of primary hip and knee replacements by 42%, and median wait times decreased from 44 weeks to 30 weeks compared with the preceding year.
Conclusion: Physician assistants integrate well into the care team and can increase surgical volumes to reduce wait times in a cost-effective manner.
Eric R. Bohm, BEng, MD, MSc Michael Dunbar, MD, PhD David Pitman, MBA, MPH Chris Rhule, MHS, PA-C/CA (Cert.) Jose Araneta, MD§ Can J Surg, Vol. 53, No. 2, April 2010 103 Full text