Expanding the role of hospitalist physician assistants achieves similar clinical outcomes, costs less

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.