Ontario Expanding the Role of Nurse Practitioners and Registered Nurses

The government is making it easier and more convenient for people to connect to the care they need. Upcoming regulation changes will expand the scopes of practice for nurse practitioners and registered nurses to order more tests and provide additional services in a variety of settings, including hospitals, interprofessional primary care teams and long-term care homes.

Starting July 1, 2025, nurse practitioners will be able to:

• Order and apply a defibrillator to provide faster care to someone in cardiac arrest.
• Order and apply a cardiac pacemaker to make it faster for people to receive care if their heart isn’t beating regularly.
• Order and perform electrocoagulation, a process to treat skin conditions and lesions, such as skin tags, helping people get them removed sooner.
• Certify a death in more circumstances, improving the end-of-life experience for families after the death of a loved one.

Additionally, these scope of practice changes will allow registered nurses to certify a death when the death is expected, helping death registration is completed in a more timely manner while preserving dignity of the deceased for their family.

The province’s expansion of scope of practice for nurse practitioners and registered nurses is part of a suite of changes proposed in upcoming legislation that, if passed, will strengthen governance and transparency, improve service delivery, and enhance patient-centred care across the health care system.

News Releases:

En: Expanding the Role of Nurse Practitioners and Registered Nurses

Fr: Élargir le rôle des infirmières praticiennes et des infirmières diplômées