%0 Journal Article
%T Are Dutch patients willing to be seen by a physician assistant instead of a medical doctor?
%A Kuilman Luppo
%A Nieweg Roos MB
%A van der Schans Cees P
%A Strijbos Jaap H
%J Human Resources for Health
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1478-4491-10-28
%X Background The employment of physician assistants (PAs) is a strategy to improve access to care. Since the new millennium, a handful of countries have turned to PAs as a means to bridge the growing gap between the supply and demand of medical services. However, little is known about this new workforce entity from the patient¡¯s perspective. The objective of this study was to assess the willingness of Dutch patients to be treated by a PA or a medical doctor (MD) under various time constraints and semi-urgent medical scenarios. Methods A total of 450 Dutch adults were recruited to act as surrogate patients. A convenience sample was drawn from patients in a medical office waiting room in a general hospital awaiting their appointments. Each participant was screened to be naive as to what a PA and a nurse practitioner are and then read a definition of a PA and an MD. One of three medical scenarios was assigned to the participants in a patterned 1-2-3 strategy. Patients were required to make a trade-off decision of being seen after 1 hour by a PA or after 4 hours by a doctor. This forced-choice method continued with the same patient two more times with 30 minutes and 4 hours and another one of 2 hours versus 4 hours for the PA and MD, respectively. Results Surrogate patients chose the PA over the MD 96 % to 98 % of the time (depending on the scenario). No differences emerged when analysed by gender, age, or parenthood status. Conclusion Willingness to be seen by a PA was tested a priori to determine whether surrogate Dutch patients would welcome this new health-care provider. The findings suggest that employing PAs, at least in concept, may be an acceptable strategy for improving access to care with this population.
%K Physician assistants
%K Trade-off
%K Willingness
%U http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/10/1/28