As the price of healthcare continues to rise, with a projected 2016 healthcare tab of $10,000 per person, many healthcare providers and subscribers are trying to find the least expensive plan that affords the best care possible. In his recent research “The Healthcare Professional Workforce: Understanding Human Capital in a Changing Industry”, published in The British Journal of Healthcare, Timothy Hoff found that healthcare employees are collaborating with one another to provide better, more affordable care.
“This team-based approach is still a work in progress,” says Hoff, “but the goal is to increase efficiency and deliver higher quality care within a compressed time frame.”
This new system calls for medical professionals such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners to have a greater role in the medical field, taking on more responsibility than before. By doing so, nurses will perform some duties a doctor once performed, while their medical assistants take on some of their tasks in return.
“There simply aren't enough physicians to provide all the care,” Hoff explains. “To make up for that, other healthcare professionals are being exposed to better training in school and then being given a chance to do more complex work.”