- The Nurse Practitioner -
Advanced Nursing Practice in Canada

A nurse practitioner(NP) is a registered nurse who is prepared with advanced education and clinical training to practice in an advanced nursing practice role.

This role includes practices that have traditionally been out of the nursing scope of practice for a registered nurse such as:

• diagnosing and treating common acute illnesses


• managing stable chronic illnesses


• prescribing certain medications


• ordering and interpreting specified lab tests and X-rays

The Ontario government has put a plan in place to establish primary health care clinics that use nurse practitioners, doctors, and other health care professionals in the specialities of pharmacy, social work, and nutrition. The first clinic in Sudbury is already in operation.

In this video the Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announces the plan to open three Nurse Practitioner-led (NP) clinics in Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Belle River more to be established in the near future.

Ontario is moving ahead with expanding the NP role within the Canadian health care system, but the fact remains that this is very new in Canada and in the public interest a lot of regulatory issues are still being worked out.

Because the role is so new many health care providers may not understand exactly what a nurse practitioner does and how they can be best utilized within the Canadian health care system.

Hopefully Ontario's example will provide much needed real life experience that other provinces can learn from.