Use of nurse practitioners in LTC ‘a huge bonus’
Hobbs says it could help attract physicians too
Friday, December 8, 2006 -- Natalie Miller
At Rosebridge Manor, one doctor looks after the majority of the Jasper long-term care home’s 78 residents.

Dr. Robin Conway usually has a nurse with him who assists with screening and tracking of residents on medications for Alzheimer disease.

In a province pressed for doctors, Rosebridge Manor’s administrator, Nelly Hobbs, says there’s a role for nurse practitioners in long-term care.

“Certainly I think there is a need,” says Nelly.

“It’s getting very hard to get physicians. It might make the job more palatable for physicians. Actually he has a nurse now that helps with the screening and tracking of people on Alzheimer’s medications.”

Although the majority of the 728 NPs in Ontario work in community health centres, 17 are currently working in long-term care settings. In March 1999, the provincial government announced a pilot project to introduce primary health care NPs into long-term care facilities and a year later funded 20 full-time NP positions in 10 long-term care pilot projects.

The advance practice nurses are currently working in various capacities in municipal homes, charitable homes, private, and not-for-profit homes. A NP is an advanced practice nurse, functioning within the full scope of nursing practice and as such is neither a second level physician nor a doctor's assistant. Nurse practitioner skills include the ability to: provide wellness care including health screening activities such as Pap smears and monitoring infant growth and development, diagnose and treat minor illnesses such as ear and bladder infections, diagnose and treat minor injuries such as sprains and lacerations, screen for the presence of chronic disease, such as diabetes and monitor people with stable chronic disease, such as hypertension.

Jane Sanders, executive director of the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario (NPAO), tells the OMNIway NPs are doing good work in areas including managing medications, reducing the number of transfers to hospitals and even discharging residents of long-term care back into their own homes.

Nelly supports the concept of NPs working in long-term care especially in areas where doctor recruiting doctors is a challenge.

“I just see it as a huge bonus for nursing homes.”