The Expanding Health Team - Nurse Practitioners

The health sector is changing, not only in PEI and Canada but worldwide, and with good reason. Why?

There is no other option.

One of the most startling statistics I read in the Corpus Sanchez report was the rate at which the cost of the health system is growing relative to the provincial treasury. Based on that report, by 2013 our health system will consume all new incremental revenue, meaning the spending of every other department will have to be frozen in order to pay for increases in the health budget. By 2014, only five years from now, other departments will have to reduce spending to pay for health care cost increases. It’s a sobering statistic....

As we move toward a primary care model – community-based, preventive, continuous and integrated care with a focus on interprofessional collaboration – we have to find new, more efficient ways of accessing the health system to avoid the grim situation described above. One way of doing that is to make better use of the health team.

Nurse practitioners are a central part of the health team. According to a recent CBC report, nurse practitioners can see from 60 to 70 percent of patients that would normally see a family doctor. That is a significant burden removed from the family doctor and also a much more cost-effective way of accessing the health system. After all, a nurse practitioner exerts a much lighter burden on the province’s pocketbook than a doctor.

The article at this link is from a Newfoundland perspective, but is also relevant to PEI and presents a good example of how nurse practitioners can help ease demands and pressures on the health system.

Mark