With millions of Canadians without a family doctor, some provinces are leaning on nurse practitioners to help shoulder the load. Experts say P.E.I. is among them, quickly increasing nurse practitioners’ role in primary care.
While their scope of practice varies from province to province, it has broadened in recent years, says the Nurse Practitioner Association of Canada.
“In many jurisdictions, they’re being recognized as primary care providers who can independently practice and independently manage a panel of patients,” said Ellen Christie, the association’s president-elect.
Christie adds that nurse practitioners can generally diagnose medical conditions, order lab tests, prescribe medications, perform some procedures and much more. She says as health-care demands increase and the supply of providers struggles to keep pace, the list of services some professionals can offer is getting longer. Another example is expanded prescribing authority for pharmacists.
Those pressures are pushing many provinces away from the solo practice system, where one family doctor sees most patients, toward team-based, collaborative care. Christie says nurse practitioners are a key part of that approach on P.E.I.
“P.E.I. is certainly leading the country when it comes to the shift and the implementation of interdisciplinary, team-based care,” Christie said, admitting she may be a little biased being based on the Island.
P.E.I. has at least 17 Patient Medical Homes, where nurse practitioners work with family doctors, social workers, pharmacists and other providers to deliver primary care as a team.
The goal is fewer patients on waitlists and less burnout for health-care workers.
Candice Rochford, secretary of the P.E.I. Nurse Practitioners Association (PEINA), says approximately half of the members work in panel positions, meaning they are the lead primary-care provider for a group of patients.
There are than 35,000 Islanders on the provincial patient registry without a family physician.
“The amount of patients that we care for ranges anywhere from 300 to close to 1,000,” Rochford said. “That’s thousands of Islanders whose primary care is provided by a nurse practitioner, so we’re certainly helping with that gap.”
As Canada marks National Nurse Practitioner Week, which takes place between Nov. 9-15, Rochford says PEINA wants to see the province allow nurse practitioners to run their own clinics independently.
“(Nurse practitioners) are then able to work outside that typical nine-to-five schedule that’s enacted by an employer, and set their own hours to better suit patient needs,” she said.
In Alberta, nurse practitioners can operate independent, publicly funded clinics. Saskatchewan is also piloting a government-funded model for primary care led by nurse practitioners.
In some provinces, nurse practitioners also operate privately run clinics.
Coming down the pipeline is an updated interpretation of the Canada Health Act, taking effect in April 2026. Rochford says it will classify primary-care services provided by nurse practitioners as “medically necessary,” giving provincial governments flexibility to use federal health-care dollars traditionally earmarked for physicians to support nurse practitioners.
“That would be a great opportunity for our government to leverage our (nurse practitioners),” she said.
According to a Health P.E.I. report from earlier this year, the province has the highest number of nurse practitioners, per capita, in Canada.
“There’s certainly leverage there to significantly improve access for patients in P.E.I.,” Rochford said.
