The PA Advantage: Healthcare Teams in 2035

Fast-forwarding to 2035, Dr. Kolb envisions a transformed healthcare landscape where PAs play central roles in team-based, technology-enabled, and community-driven care. She underscores the necessity for flexible, adaptive teams to address the growing healthcare challenges, urging organizations to start implementing these changes now.

Key Takeaways:

Within the next decade, PAs and NPs will make up nearly half of all U.S. providers.
Rising chronic disease, aging populations, and rapid medical knowledge growth demand nimble, team-based care.
Future teams will be collaborative, tech-enabled, and equity-driven — with PAs at the center of these transformations.

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Speaker

Click on the photo below to learn more about the speaker.

Jennifer M. Kolb, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA

References and Additional Resources:

Densen, P. (2011). Challenges and opportunities facing medical education. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 122, 48–58. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116346/

National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). (2023, June). Closing the primary care gap: How community health centers can address the nation’s primary care crisis. https://www.nachc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Closing-the-Primary-Care-Gap_Full-Report_2023_digital-final.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, October 4). About chronic diseases [Webpage]. https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html

Population Reference Bureau. (2024, January 9). Fact sheet: Aging in the United States. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/

Supported by

Jennifer M. Kolb, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA

Jennifer M. Kolb, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA, is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs at the American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA) and the interim Executive Director of the PA Foundation (the philanthropic arm of AAPA).

Dr. Kolb has served as a volunteer leader, patient advocate, and change agent of the PA profession and all of healthcare for more than 20 years. She has held multiple leadership positions at both the state and national levels and is the former president and chair of the AAPA board of directors. She is a strong advocate for health equity and improving patient care access and a champion of healthcare advocacy efforts on both the state and federal levels. She is an accomplished speaker, published author, and Op-Ed scholar.