Addressing the Data Gap on Registered Nurses in Primary Care in Canada

By Maria Mathews & Linsday Hedden | February, 2026

Over the last 25 years, Canadian provinces and territories have introduced a variety of primary care reforms that support team-based interprofessional care. Registered Nurses (RNs) who work in primary care, (hereafter, primary care Registered Nurses [PCRNs]), frequently comprise the largest proportion of non-physician health professionals in primary care teams. As members of primary care teams, PCRNs provide a broad range of health services to diverse populations, and evidence shows they improve access to care, continuity of care, health equity, and patient outcomes. However, little is known about who they are, how their positions are funded, how they are compensated, or the organizational characteristics of team-based models that support or hinder their work and team functioning. Although the Canadian Institutes of Health Information compiles Canadian nursing workforce data, PCRNs are grouped with other RNs and nurse practitioners working in a range of community and hospital-based settings including mental health and home care agencies, schools, correctional facilities, outpost nursing stations, and public health organizations. Much of what we know specifically about PCRNs in Canada comes from qualitative studies and local surveys.

As part of a project funded by CIHR (PJT173485), we conducted an environmental scan to create a comprehensive listing and description of existing primary care team models (that include PCRNs) in Canada. Despite employing multiple search strategies and consulting experts to fill in missing information found substantial gaps in information describing PCRN compensation and practice models. The availability and detail of information describing compensation and practice models varied substantially by model and the province or territory, even if they share the same name (e.g., Primary Care Networks in British Columbia and Alberta). As a result, it is not possible to fully capture all the nuances of different primary care compensation or practice models using publicly available sources. The absence of complete data highlights the limited information on structural components of team-based care and the need for more detailed descriptions of these models to support their implementation across Canada.

Using a cross-sectional, online survey, we described the demographic, employment, work setting, and patient population characteristics of PCRNs in Canada. We found that PCRNs are predominantly mid-career women who have spent roughly half their nursing careers practicing in primary care. The majority of PCRNs in Canada worked in Ontario or Quebec, a likely reflection of the two provinces’ large populations and long-history of team-based practice model reforms. While most PCRNs worked in a single setting, typically a clinic, almost one third also delivered services in schools, homes and outreach settings. While the majority of PCRNs in the survey were able to report individual-level employment data (such as membership in a union, form of compensation, employer), over one-quarter of respondents were unsure, preferred not to answer, or gave incorrect answers when asked about organizational characteristics such as clinic funding arrangement or funding source. These findings suggest that self-reported survey data on funding and practice models should be viewed with caution. Our data also suggest that many PCRNs likely misunderstand how clinic financing works, which, to some extent, reduces the strength of their advocacy and leadership in primary care.

Our research highlights the need for a minimum dataset and regular data collection on the primary care workforce beyond physicians. Up-to-date data on PCRNs, and the other professions in primary care, are needed for workforce planning and evaluation of primary care reforms. A number of countries gather data on primary care providers, including PCRNs, through annual health worker surveys or licensure renewal and registration processes. Valid, reliable, relevant, and timely data are needed to assess and optimize the contributions of PCRNs in primary care teams in Canada.