Nurse Practitioner for residential care?

[2010RN]

I am a second year nursing student and have been working for the summer in a residential care facility. I am loving my experiences with the residents in the care facility and considering going into residential care when I graduate in two years.

What I am wondering is if there is a Nurse Practitioners specialization that would be applicable for residential care in Canada. The closest that I can find is a Masters of Nursing in Aging offered by the University of Alberta. I am specifically interested in obtaining a Nurse Practitioners degree because I feel that it could be very useful in residential care for the nurse to be able to prescribe some meds. What I have seen so far is that the doctors very rarely come to the facilty to assess the residents and therefore, the nurses are forced to choose between having the patients with non-emergency conditions (cellulitis, for example) wait several days to be seen by the Dr. or sending the resident off to the local emergency room.

So, are there any Nurse Practitioners who work in specialize residential care or am I completely off base?

Thank you

[Fiona59]

I think it would be prohibitive in costs of your salary. I've seen a few NPs in continuing care but they were part timers and worked several floors. But these were LTC settings with subacute and palliative units attached. I also know of one NP who looks after a couple of facilities and counts the residents as part of her patient population. For the bulk of her time she's in the office and they come to her.

If you are talking assisted living type facilities, they usually have one RN on days and the rest of the coverage is by LPNs. These residents usually have their own doctors.