TY - JOUR T1 - Effect of a physician assistant on quality and efficiency metrics in an emergency department JF - Canadian Family Physician JO - Can Fam Physician SP - e61 LP - e67 DO - 10.46747/cfp.6702e61 VL - 67 IS - 2 AU - Michael R.P. de la Roche AU - Nathalie Dyer AU - Mark Froats AU - Allen Bell AU - Lois McDonald AU - Craig Bolton AU - Rob Devins AU - Ryan Hall AU - Jonathan Leclerc AU - Jann Istead AU - Michele Miron AU - Martin Badowski AU - Tracy Steinitz AU - Nathan King AU - Priyanka Gogna Y1 - 2021/02/01 UR - http://www.cfp.ca/content/67/2/e61.abstract N2 - Objective To determine the effect of a physician assistant (PA) working in a secondary care hospital emergency department (ED) on the overall performance of the ED.Design A retrospective review of ED data from April 1, 2017, to September 30, 2017.Setting Belleville General Hospital, a secondary care hospital, ED in Ontario.Participants A physician assistant, 13 emergency physicians, and 7 family physicians.Main outcome measures Overall ED performance was evaluated using metrics from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care: rate of patients who left without being seen, provider initial assessment time at the 90th percentile, and the average provider initial assessment time for all patients over a 6-month period.Results In the PA group, there was a lower average daily left without being seen rate (3.4% vs 5.2%; P < .001), a lower provider initial assessment time at the 90th percentile (3.9 hours vs 4.5 hours; P < .001), a lower average provider initial assessment time (114.83 minutes vs 139.46 minutes; P < .001), and a lower average length of stay (313.85 minutes vs 348.91 minutes; P < .001).Conclusion This study suggests that a PA has a statistically significant positive effect on the overall performance of an ED. Future studies should examine the effect of a PA on quality of care and hospital funding. ER -