Becker’s Healthcare Podcast The Expanding Role of Physician Assistants at Mount Sinai with Heather Isola
Feb 14, 2026
Heather Isola, VP of PA Services at Mount Sinai and leader of the Center for Advanced Practice Providers, brings PA workforce strategy and clinical experience in community medicine and OBGYN. She talks about team-based primary care models. She discusses maximizing practice at top-of-license. She outlines standardizing PA roles and scaling consistent training across a health system.
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From Community Clinician To System Leader
- Heather began her career in community medicine doing HIV and hepatitis C work before moving into OBGYN at Mount Sinai.
- She progressed into leadership roles and became the health system's first director of PA services.
Generalist PAs Improve System Resilience
- PAs and NPs serve as flexible workforce responders because they are not specialty-locked and can be redeployed during disruptions like COVID.
- That generalist capability makes advanced practice providers essential to system resilience.
Team Models Scale Primary Care
- The future of primary care is team-based with physicians, PAs, and NPs collaborating to care for larger populations.
- Coordinated teams can scale capacity and improve retention, throughput, and patient experience.