Nurses can help ease health-care crisis

Re: “Make nurse practitioners a campaign pledge,” column, Sept. 21. I am glad Dr. Trevor Hancock has started a conversation about nurse practitioners as primary-care providers.

He mentions that he “would be more than happy with a nurse practitioner-led primary-care centre for your routine care” and that he “would expect them [NPs] to know when it was time to refer … [you] back to … [your] family physician for management of complications or referral to specialty care.”

Absolutely, this is one option. Another is that, like physicians, nurse practitioners are autonomous clinicians (i.e. able to care for a patient population/have a practice), who collaborate with other colleagues as needed; both family physicians and nurse practitioners refer to specialists (and each other) when appropriate.

Additionally, he suggested that “NPs and family physicians should be integrated in the same practice … or a least colocated, rather than having freestanding NP practices” and that “standalone NP clinics make a great deal of sense for small, rural or remote communities such as the Gulf Islands.”

Yes, moving from free-standing practices (our traditional medical-care model), to team-based care is critical to meaningful health-care reform. As such, may I offer that NP-led clinics can provide both urban and rural communities with access to cost-effective, high-quality, patientcentred, inter-professional teams — helping ease British Columbia’s growing health-care crisis. Leanne Rowand Family nurse practitioner Victoria