Hospital.Help

Berlin The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Westphalia-Lippe (KVWL) has drawn a positive interim conclusion from its model project Physician Assistants in outpatient care. The qualified medical assistants are being met with great acceptance and would lead to a noticeable reduction in the burden on everyday practice.

This was announced today by the deputy chairman of the KVWL board, Volker Schrage, at the congress of the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Zi). The cooperation project with the private university EU FH and the German Society of Physician Assistants (DGPA) has been running in ten selected practices since April 2023.

The integration of physician assistants (PA) into practice work is closely monitored by a practice organization team and evaluated by the Zi. The starting point was the analysis that PAs have so far been used almost exclusively in the inpatient sector.

Accommodating this new professional group in the sociotope of practice is difficult and has often failed, admitted Schrage. In the current project, however, the deployment was only aborted in one case because the collaboration with the medical assistants (MFA) did not work.

Overall, the feedback has been very positive so far. Acceptance among patients is high. They feel accepted, and waiting times for appointments are decreasing, said Schrage. The PAs in the project will take on up to 30 percent of patient contacts, and an initial improvement in patient care is already evident.

The doctors and other staff in the practices would also largely welcome the new specialists. For the doctors in particular, the PAs would provide noticeable relief by relieving them of routine tasks and thereby freeing up more time for treatment.

The PAs deployed would already carry out a long series of tasks independently, including infection consultations, home visits, wound care, hyposensitization, vaccinations, long-term ECGs, preparatory sonographies, explanatory discussions or the review of laboratory findings.

In one of the participating GP practices, for example, a PA takes over the acute consultation and can treat simple cases by delegation. However, the doctor still has the final responsibility for the treatment process, even if he does not carry out the entire treatment himself, Schrage emphasized. If a patient is seriously ill, the PA calls in the doctor immediately.

In an orthopedic practice, a PA was able to contribute to a sustained increase in appointment capacity by taking on delegation duties. This meant that patients could receive appointments two months earlier on average.

MFAs see PA not only as a relief, but also as an opportunity for their own professional lives. The PA course, which can also be completed alongside work, is a new career option for MFAs with the chance to take on more responsibility and more attractive working conditions. The whole thing is also an opportunity for advancement for MFAs, emphasized Schrage. This dead-end MFA has thus been pushed aside a little.

The KVWL supports the PA concept and is committed to its greater use in outpatient care, he stressed. It is therefore also discussing the issue with the Federal Ministry of Health, with whom KVWL representatives have recently attended several meetings on the subject. © lau/aerzteblatt.de