Exploring Physician Assistant Role Integration in the Ontario Healthcare System

Abstract

Background: The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) introduced Physician Assistants (PAs) into the Ontario health care system in 2006 to help increase patient access to care, decrease wait times, and improve continuity of care. As a new addition to Ontario, little research exists to describe the roles and contributions of PAs. The aim of this dissertation is to explore PA role integration through an in-depth analysis of setting and role descriptions, barriers and facilitators of role integration, and healthcare provider perceptions.

Methods: An exploratory, multiple-case study was used to examine PA role integration in four clinical settings: family medicine, emergency medicine, general surgery, and inpatient medicine. Inductive thematic analysis was used within each of the four cases and for the cross-case thematic analysis.

Results: Forty-six health care providers and administrators were interviewed across 19 different healthcare sites. Support for PA contributions across various health care settings, the importance of role awareness, supervisory relationship attributes, and role vulnerability (in relation to sustainability and funding) are interconnected and dynamic in general surgery, inpatient medicine, emergency department and family medicine settings. These findings demonstrate how the flexible and adaptable nature of the PA role and the PAs ability to build relationships allows for the establishment of interprofessional, collaborative, and person-centered care.

Conclusions: This dissertation provides a rich understanding of the role of PAs in the Ontario healthcare system through an exploration of role definition, impact on patient care, and professional perceptions. The findings from this dissertation are important from a broad systems perspective as the results help fill existing knowledge and practice gaps regarding the role of PAs, and will help inform the design of human health resource research in order to optimize health care system efficiencies.