How the School of Health Sciences of Touro College ramped up their Physician Assistant Program across the country with Exxat

Introduction

The Physician Assistant Program at the School of Health Sciences of Touro College is one of the fastest-growing PA programs in the country. Currently, the university offers three full-time PA programs in Bay Shore and Manhattan.

Despite the slowdown due to the pandemic, the School of Health Sciences of Touro College is vigorously expanding its reach by adding new PA programs in Middletown, Chicago, New Jersey and California, and will be the first university to establish a PA Program in Puerto Rico.

Dr. Joseph F. Faiella-Tommasino, Vice President of PA Program Development and Operations, credits this exceptional growth to having built a robust program with successful results. Every year, the program enjoys a large applicant pool because of its 100% pass rate in the last 4 out of 5 years. According to Dr. Tommasino, such an outcome is possible because of the team and the tools at the program’s disposal. Exxat is a big part of both.

Here is how the School of Health Sciences of Touro College leveraged Exxat to drive program success and growth:

1. Student Retention and Placements

Prior to Exxat, the program observed an attrition rate of 15%, which was the national average. However, Dr. Tommasino believed they could strive for better. Upon partnering with Exxat, there was a significant drop in the attrition rate – in part because of student experience and in part, due to placements. Students, being married to their devices, found it easy to log information, which gave them time and energy to focus on their clinical experiences and academic preparation.

Furthermore, even as the pandemic progressed, the program never lost a beat when it came to placements. Exxat was invaluable in ensuring that no clinicals were lost during COVID-19, leading to student satisfaction during grim times. That the students were placed geographically closer to their homes was an added advantage.

“Exxat is the leading model for the industry. There is no tool that is more efficient and adaptable to each new Physician Assistant program’s identity, goals, and objectives.”

- Dr. Joseph F. Faiella-Tommasino, PA-C, PhD
Vice President of PA Program Development and Operations
The School of Health Sciences of Touro College

2. Strategic Hiring

The program viewed Exxat as a long-term investment and hired people who could be trained to use the Exxat platform. This decision allowed the team to save approximately 25-30% of staff hiring costs and infrastructure in the long run. Before Exxat, each site easily needed 2-3 persons in handling the clinical, academic and administrative aspects. This number reduced to one administrative personnel and one clinical and academic coordinator in each site, being collectively overseen by a single program coordinator. With this hiring strategy in place, the program found it easier to expand across sites with fewer resources, without compromising on outcomes. All the new hires needed was some training and experience.

3. Ease of Administration

While every education management platform offers a standard set of tools, Exxat provided the School of Health Sciences of Touro College with solutions that could be adapted to the administrative needs of the PA program. The Touro team worked closely with the Exxat team to work through their specific objectives. With Exxat, the program noticed a higher response rate from professors and preceptors.

Many redundancies were taken care of – especially when it came to evaluations, allowing professors to handle many students simultaneously. The biggest improvement was seen on the clinical sites where data collection, reporting and assigning clinical experiences, despite last-minute changes, became easy.

A Thriving PA Program

• The PA Program at the School of Health Sciences of Touro College has enjoyed a national pass rate average of 98% in the last 10 years.

• In 4 out of 5 years, the PA Program has seen an average pass rate of 100%.

• The School of Health Sciences of Touro College is expanding from 3 full-time PA programs to 8 PA programs by 2022.

Conclusion

PA programs can be highly resource-intensive. It takes a tremendous amount of work and experience to build a successful PA program. To scale it across multiple regions involves planning and setting the right foundation. The School of Health Sciences of Touro College accomplished this by taking measures right from the start – focusing on multiple aspects like day-to-day tasks, intelligent hiring and student outcomes. Each of these factors has contributed to the program’s growth and success; and Exxat, according to Dr. Tommasino, has been crucial to this journey.

“The information that Exxat generates, the ease of use for students, professors and preceptors, its adaptability to the individual needs of the program are the several direct and indirect benefits.”

- Dr. Joseph F. Faiella-Tommasino, PA-C, PhD
Vice President of PA Program Development and Operations
The School of Health Sciences of Touro College