Educational decentralization and deployment of physician's assistants

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Physician Assistant Training
• Community Health

Background:

• Physician assistant (PA) programs often face challenges in deploying graduates to underserved or remote areas.
• The San Francisco Bay Area has specific needs for healthcare workforce distribution.
• Previous PA training models may have limited graduate practice location diversity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of a decentralized, community-based educational network on physician assistant graduate practice locations.
• To analyze the philosophy, implementation, and outcomes of program decentralization.
• To compare graduate practice patterns before and after the decentralization initiative.

Main Methods:

• A community-based educational network was established to decentralize PA training.
• Graduate practice locations were tracked for a seven-year period, comparing pre- and post-decentralization data.
• Analysis included unique program aspects such as flexible student-preceptor matching and community-based clinical training.

Main Results:

• Prior to decentralization, 58% of graduates practiced outside the Bay Area.
• After decentralization, 100% of graduates trained in community settings secured their first practice location away from the Bay Area.
• The study identified unique decentralization elements contributing to improved graduate deployment.

Conclusions:

• Decentralizing physician assistant education to community settings significantly enhances graduate deployment to practice locations outside the training region.
• Community-based training models offer a flexible and effective approach to addressing healthcare workforce distribution challenges.
• The findings support the expansion of decentralized educational strategies for allied health professions.