In conjunction with other legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is transforming medical care in the United States. The ACA is seeking to improve patient and population health outcomes while lowering costs. One mechanism is to incentivize the use of interprofessional health teams in primary and specialty care settings. These changes require reconfiguring and…
Congressional proposals to expand graduate medical education (GME) have set a goal of funding 3,000 new postgraduate year-1 (PGY1) slots for 5 years for a total of 15,000 new residency positions. Proposed legislation has suggested that the Workforce Commission, the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA), and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) provide input…
Stroke survivors who are given early contact with a physical and/or occupational therapist following their stroke improves their outcomes for recovery. The majority of stroke survivors are discharged home following an acute care admission. Understanding the care pathway from the acute to community setting and continuity of therapy across settings is extremely important to the…
The number of actively practicing physicians and the number of physicians needed to meet demand in a particular specialty area depend on how physicians are counted (for example, area of training vs area of practice). The way physicians are counted has a major impact on our understanding of specialty shortages in particular areas and policy…
Healthcare in the United States is currently undergoing dramatic and rapid changes. These changes will require adjustments in the ways we educate, deploy, and recruit new members of the healthcare workforce, and North Carolina is no exception. This article includes perspectives from many experts in education, policy, and practice about the state of North Carolinas…
Health care professionals are taking on new roles with medical assistants having one of the most rapidly evolving roles in new models of care. New roles are emerging that focus on coordinating and managing patients’ care within the health care system and “boundary spanning” functions that address the patient’s health care needs across health and…
The local supply of physicians in any community, especially smaller and rural communities, depends on a flow of physicians into those communities from the places where they train or from more populous locations that may have more than enough physicians to meet population needs. This research brief explores whether it is possible to predict that…
Although physician workforce planning approaches the need for physicians of each specialty individually, in fact many services are provided by physicians of several specialties. Further, there is some evidence that physicians adjust the scope and balance of services they provide when there are too few physicians of other specialties in their communities, although when this…
As healthcare demand in the United States is expected to grow, increased use of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) is seen as a partial solution to potential physician shortages. Both NPs and PAs can be trained relatively quickly compared to physicians and they can address patient needs across the spectrum of health settings…
Team‐based care involving physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) is one recommended strategy for improving access and quality and reducing cost in the patient‐centered medical home (PCMH). PAs and NPs can, and do, perform a variety of roles on primary care teams. This suggests that there is plasticity within the professions and between PAs,…
