Patient Safety: Physician Assistant Responsibilities and Opportunities

American Academy/Physician Assistants, Alexandria VA

Investigators

Abstract

[unreadable] Working in a team relationship with physicians, PAs today provide over 290 million patient[unreadable] visits per year. PAs work in all health care settings and specialties where physicians normally provide[unreadable] care. PAs are in a critical position to help promote patient safety and the quality of physician services.[unreadable] The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAP), the only national professional[unreadable] organization for PAs, wishes to raise the visibility of patient safety and quality of care concerns in the[unreadable] profession generally and better enable PAs in all settings to become more active and accountable[unreadable] participants in patient safety and quality improvement processes.[unreadable] To these ends, AAPA proposes to convene an advisory committee of national leaders in[unreadable] patient safety and quality improvement to identify five to eight patient safety practices in which PAs[unreadable] can participate or lead that would advance patient safety and the quality of care in measurable ways.[unreadable] A case-based, modular conference CME program will be created and presented at the AAPA annual[unreadable] conference as well as eight to ten state and specialty PA organizations at their annual CME[unreadable] conferences. AAPA expects to reach over 3,000 PAs through this conference series program.[unreadable] An article summarizing the results of the consensus meeting and the proceedings of the[unreadable] conference program will be prepared and published in the Journal of the American Academy of[unreadable] Physician Assistants, with a circulation of over 62,000 PAs nationally and internationally. The[unreadable] information from the lecture series and the article also will be posted on the AAPA Web site, which[unreadable] has over 5 million hits per month.[unreadable] The Principal Investigator for the project will be Stephen Crane, PhD, EVP/CEO of the AAPA[unreadable] and formerly vice president of the Association for Health Services Research. The AAPA Quality Care[unreadable] Committee will be responsible for the content of this project. Staffing for the advisory committee and[unreadable] QCC meetings, lecture presentations, publications and Web site material will be provided through the[unreadable] AAPA.[unreadable] Public Description: The Patient Safety: Physician Assistant Responsibilities and Opportunities[unreadable] conference series will provide PAs with the knowledge and skills to implement effective system[unreadable] strategies to improve patient safety appropriate to their particular patient care setting, and thus[unreadable] contribute to improvements in the overall quality of health care provided by PAs and those patient[unreadable] care professionals with whom they work.