Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners in Rural Washington Emergency Departments

One role of physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) is to meet the growing demand for access to rural health care. Critical Access Hospitals, those with less than 25 beds, are usually located in rural communities, often providing continuity of care that clinics cannot deliver. Because little is known about staffing in these small hospital emergency departments, an exploratory study was undertaken using a mixed-methods approach. In Washington State, 18 of the 39 Critical Access Hospitals staff their emergency departments with PAs and NPs. Utilization data were collected through structured interviews by phone or in person on site. Most PAs and NPs lived within the community and staffing tended to be either 24 hours in-house or short notice if they lived or worked nearby. Emergency department visits ranged from 200 to 25,000 per year. All sites were designated level V or IV trauma centers and often managed cardiac events, significant injuries and, in some larger settings, obstetrics. In most instances, PAs were the sole providers in the emergency departments, albeit with physician backup and emergency medical technician support if a surge of emergency cases arose. Two-thirds of the PAs had graduated within the last 5 years. Most preferred the autonomy of the emergency department role and all expressed job satisfaction. Geographically, the more remote a Washington State Critical Access Hospital is, the more likely it will be staffed by PAs/NPs. The diverse utilization of semiautonomous PAs and NPs and their rise in rural hospital employment is a new workforce observation that requires broader investigation.