The rest were mostly in public health clinics, nursing homes, prisons, home health care agencies and the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to the American Academy of Physician Assistants, about one-third of all PA's provide health care to communities having fewer than 50,000 residents where physicians may be in limited supply. Employment opportunities are expected to be excellent for physician assistants, particularly in areas or settings that have difficulty attracting physicians, such as rural and inner city clinics. Employment of PA's is expected to grow much faster than the national average for all occupations through the year 2006 due to anticipated expansion of the health services industry and an emphasis on cost containment. Physicians and institutions are expected to employ more PA's to provide primary care and assist with medical and surgical procedures, because PA's are cost-effective and productive members of the health care team.
Physician assistants can relieve physicians of routine duties and procedures.
Telemedicine, or using technology to facilitate interactive consultations between physicians and physician assistants, will also expand the use of physician assistants. Besides the traditional office-based setting, PA's should find a growing number of jobs in institutional settings such as hospitals, academic medical centers, public clinics and prisons. Additional PA's may be needed to augment medical staffing in inpatient teaching hospital settings if the number of physician residents is reduced. In addition, State-imposed legal limitations on the numbers of hours worked by physician residents are increasingly common and encourage hospitals to use PA's to supply some physician resident services. Opportunities will be best in States that allow PA's a wider scope of practice, such as the ability to prescribe medication.