About the Ontario Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner Program

The Ontario Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner (PHCNP) Program was developed and implemented in 1995 as a post-baccalaureate certificate program. This unique program is one standardized program that is delivered cooperatively by a consortium of nine university nursing programs comprising The Council of Ontario University Programs in Nursing (COUPN) and is delivered in both English and French (University of Ottawa and Laurentian University).

In 2006-2007, the COUPN consortium, believing that nurse practitioner education should be at the graduate level, sought and obtained approval from The Ontario Council on Graduate Studies (OCGS) to advance the PHCNP Program to the graduate level while linking it to each university's core graduate program courses. In this way, students would be able to obtain a masters degree and the PHCNP Certificate or Diploma.
 
The curriculum for each of the NP courses went through an external curriculum review and all of the seven PHCNP courses were redeveloped by both the Anglophone and Francophone course professors. PhD prepared faculty were involved in this curriculum redevelopment to ensure that the PHCNP courses reflected the rigor of graduate level education.

The curriculum continues to be delivered using multiple delivery modalities within the consortium, and courses are planned and administered province-wide by the university who developed specific courses. Thus, standardization of content and efficient use of faculty time also ensures the development of a rigorous curriculum.

The COUPN Deans/Directors serve as the Board of the Consortium and, therefore, are responsible for making all program decisions affecting budget, curriculum and other operational issues. University autonomy and language needs are all respected within this model in relation to policies/procedures and regulations governing each university. 

A Program Manager reports directly to the Board for operational issues related to the consortium such maintaining linkages with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MoHLTC), provincial and national professional organizations, distribution of each university's budget, overseeing the standardized application and admission process, curriculum and distance education delivery issues and statistics related to admission, attrition and academic progress.

At each university, a Site Coordinator oversees the daily operations of program delivery such as student and tutor/instructor issues, booking classrooms and skills laboratory rooms, and arranging for written examinations and OSCEs .

Individual universities manage their own NP student admission processes using the standardized application/admission process, clinical placements, faculty and clinical . The Deans and Directors are accountable to their respective universities and to the policy framework of the COUPN consortium.

During 2011, COUPN will undertake its first curriculum review since aligning the program at the graduate level.

The COUPN Consortium has been and continues to be an exciting, collaborative and creative strategy for nursing education. It serves as a provincial and national model for many areas of post-secondary education.

For more information on the program, click here