Most of the data on Canada’s nurses presented within the dashboards is self-reported through the annual license registration/renewal process, which not only supports regulation of the nursing professions but also provides valuable information on head counts, geospatial distribution, employment characteristics, and practice trends.   

Some regulatory colleges collect information on the specialized areas in which health care providers work (e.g., critical care, geriatrics, oncology, pediatrics). These specializations may require formal certifications for clinical practice. Additionally, nurses may also receive on-the-job training to work in specialty areas of practice that would not be captured by a formal certification.  

While aggregated data on nurses’ areas of practice is currently reported in the dashboards (i.e., data is summarized into the areas of direct care, research, administration, and other), CIHI’s Nursing in Canada methodology notes and data standards documentation provide more details on the types of specialties or areas of practice that are collected for nurses. This more granular data may be available through data requests. The process for this is outlined in the How to Access tab in our downloadable Data Catalogue.