Nurse Practitioners
NPs are independent health professionals who can perform a wide range of services and treatments – there is no reason an NP cannot be an individual’s primary care provider.
Nurse practitioners, with extensive years of expertise as registered nurses, are regulated graduate educated health professionals.
Nurse practitioners have the legal authority to autonomously complete comprehensive assessments, order, conduct and interpret diagnostic tests, diagnose health conditions, prescribe medications, arrange referrals to specialists, provide treatments, manage chronic disease, screen for early disease detection, offer healthy lifestyle coaching, and advocate for socioeconomic resources.
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Frequently Asked Questions
In Canada, you must become a registered nurse (3-4 years full time studies to obtain a post-secondary degree) and have a minimum amount of clinical experience to meet the acceptance criteria into a two year full-time 12 month a year graduate degree program with required theory and clinical hours. On average Manitoba nurse practitioners have over 10 years of registered nurse experience before becoming a nurse practitioner and 7 years of nurse practitioner experience – experts in the field!
Nurse practitioners have been educated and practicing in Canada for over 60 years, with legislation in Manitoba passed in 2005, graduate degree education began in 1998 at the University of Manitoba.
Nurse practitioners are regulated by registered nurses, the only health profession in the world that does not self-regulate nurse practitioner practice. In Manitoba, the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba regulates nurse practitioners.
Less thank 50% of nurse practitioners work for Manitoba Health or Shared Health in Manitoba, settings include:
Primary Care: access centres, provincial & federal government clinics, mobile clinic, private practice, Quickcare, self-employed, virtual care;
Long Term Care: home care, care homes, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), palliative care;
Hospitals: acute care, emergency, maternity, neonatal intensive care, NP-Led Hospital (Swan Lake, MB), paediatrics, urgent care
Self-Employed Business: family practice, fertility, functional medicine, home health care, hormone therapy, medical aesthetics, primary care;
Specialty Areas: addictions, cancer care, cannabis, fertility, heart failure, HIV, perinatal mental health, psychiatry, RAAM clinics, transgender health;
Other: education, corrections health, First Nations health clinics, governance, management, military clinics, nursing stations, research, secondary schools, teen clinics, travel agencies, virtual care.
In 2023, there were 338 registered nurse practitioners; 12 were new graduates, 9 were registered in other provinces or territories, 5 were reinstated registrations and 1 was internationally educated.
In 2022, there were 306 registered nurse practitioners; 15 were new graduates, 21 were registered in other provinces or territories, and 3 were reinstated registrations.
The term ‘nurse’ is used to describe all nursing categories, in Manitoba there are 5 nurse categories with distinct legal scopes of practice:
- Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN),
- Nurse Practitioner (NP)
- Registered Nurse Authorized Prescriber (RNAP)
- Registered Nurse (RN)
- Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN)
Yes, in Canada registered nurse regulators have approved or use a variety of terms to describe nurse practitioners, which include: advanced practice, extended practice, extended class, and included practice.
No, nurse practitioners can purchase liability insurance from CNPS, which does not require purchasing a membership in another organization. In Canada and for nurses in Manitoba, the anti-competitive practices such as:
abuse of dominance provisions (sections 78 and 79 of the Act) and restrictive practices, such as exclusive dealing, tied-selling and market restriction, under section 77 are noncompliant with the Competition Bureau Competition Act. One can not be require a customer to buy a second product (e.g. CNPS liability insurance) as a condition of supplying a particular product (e.g. ARNM membership).