Eric Demers, PA 🇨🇦🩺🪖

“Hello College of physicians?” “Didn’t we just talk yesterday?” “Yes. We have another issue. Many of our docs are working flat out. Their productivity in the current model can’t really improve further. If anything the workload just isn’t safe for the patients or the doctors.” “How could we improve productivity and value then?” “As the ministry of health we want to commit to a rapid introduction of physician assistants. We need to get these highly trained professionals off the side lines and in to the game. Other provinces use them. Other countries use them. We don’t have a structure to license them in BC. That makes no sense.” “Won’t this cost you way more money? I mean we know team based care makes sense but…” “We envision a few options. One is to use them to fill roles that we pay physicians to do now. OR assists as an example. That will save money and free up a doctor for other work. We are paying doctors a much higher hourly rate for work they do not need to be doing especially when they are already so overwhelmed.” “We also want to let specialists hire them. Say a busy Internal Medicine doctor wants to hire a physician assistant to help offload certain parts of work that are better done by a PA. That doctor can extent capacity and productivity. The doctor can pay for that out of their billings. We don’t need to put more money in. That doctor can then focus on more appropriate complex work and shorten waiting times. They also won’t have to rush everything and everyone as much and that will be better quality care.” “What can we do?” “We can work together and make this happen. We are going to publicly announce it will be done within the next 60 days.” “Why 60 days?” “Because we are in a crisis and the public expects results. Putting a time line on it keeps us accountable. Let’s not say it out loud but a dose of accountability is needed more than ever.”