CHAT file photo

By Teagan Rasche

Nurse practitioners can help with physician shortage, but not without roadblocks

Jan 18, 2022 | 4:49 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A shortage of family physicians in southern Alberta is causing some people to seek out of province care or rely on the ER but there is a possible solution to ease the stress on doctors.

Nurse practitioners play a valuable role in health-care systems as advanced care clinicians.

They are registered nurses who then complete an advanced degree, allowing them to assess, diagnose, order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe treatment and perform procedures.

“They end up as a licensed, autonomous health care provider that has almost an identical scope of practice to a family physician,” Anne Summach, president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Alberta says.

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Summach is an NP herself and says they can work in long-term, primary and intensive care settings. In British Columbia and Ontario, they can run their own clinics which also lightens physicians’ workloads.

“I know in Medicine Hat, access to primary care is a big challenge,” Summach says. “Conservatively, 20 per cent of Albertans don’t have access to a primary care provider. So this is an important next step.”

Alberta Health Services is excited about innovative ways NPs can help Albertans, but there are some challenges.

“Over the past number of years, we have increased the number of nurse practitioners within the province,” Aaron Low, medical director at AHS South Zone says. “We haven’t similarly been able to in the South Zone as much as we would hope.”

There are 447 NPs are employed across Alberta, but only 16 are in the South Zone.

“In places where it’s difficult to recruit a physician, many times a nurse practitioner can fulfill much of that role,” Low says. “We have across the (South) Zone, many smaller places that are very difficult to recruit and retain physicians. Much of the care that would be delivered in those settings could be delivered by a nurse practitioner.”

But NPs can’t open their own clinics in Alberta due to legislation Summach calls archaic and specific to physicians.

“It isn’t aligned with current health-care positions or practices that exist and barriers have existed to fund positions in primary care,” Summach said.

The only way to work in the community is to be hired through a primary care network.

Summach says there is promising work happening with the ministry of health this year looking at ways to fund independents NPs.

“Nurse practitioners in my mind are the best of both worlds,” Summach said. “We have a nursing lens, we think about people holistically, we firmly take a consensus-based approach.”

There is hope that one-day nurse practitioners will be able to do more in Alberta to help ease the strain on the health care system and the struggles to find a family doctor.