N.L. developing physician-assistant program to help struggling doctors

The Newfoundland and Labrador government is working on a plan to introduce physician assistants to the provincial health-care system, says Health Minister Tom Osborne, to shoulder some of the load currently borne by doctors.

Physician assistants can do paperwork, take family histories, renew prescriptions and do many other chores that take up a lot of physicians' time, said Osborne.

"They do operate as a extension of the physician, and the scope of practice for physician assistants would really depend on the supervising physician and their specialty area," Osborne said.

In places like Manitoba, assistant's duties can also include conducting physical exams, diagnosing and treating illness, counselling on preventative care, prescribing medications and diagnostic testing, assisting in surgeryand performing procedures.

Physician assistants aren't currently recognized by the provincialHealth Professions Act.

However, Osborne said the province is developing a three-year program to integrate physician assistants into practice within the regional health authorities.

"The program is and will be designed to target departments where they're currently struggling to maintain services due to high patient volumes or vacancieswithin those areas," he said.

"We're focusing on emergency departments, hospice programs and surgical programs."

Evaluation parameters, contracts and job advertisements are being prepared, said Osborne, and the province will be consulting regional health authoritiesand the provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Once the pilot program is approved, Osborne said, it will take between three to six months to get up and running. He said the department began work on the program about eight weeks ago.

Freeing up time

Earlier this week,Dr. Katharine Smart, the past-president of the Canadian Medical Association, told CBC News physician assistants areone way for theprovinceto address its doctorshortage.

"They really allow the doctor to do more and reach more patients," Smart said on Monday.

"It's really this idea of creating teams with various people, various skill sets, to allow as many people as possible to have access to high-quality health care."

Smart said many physicians work alone, which means they spend a lot of their time on administrative duties that don't require a doctor.

Removing those tasks would mean doctors can spend more time with patients, she said.

"I think we've really struggled to embrace creative, new ideas. We've struggled to embrace change. We've struggled to move past some of the regulatory barriers that prevented us from bringing new and different people into our system," said Smart.

"To me, the innovation we need to be seeingin our system, it needs to prioritize people the providers themselves and the patients."

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