Question

the impact of standardized nursing terminology

Answer 1

Standardized nursing language (SNL) is a commonly-understood set of terms used to describe the clinical judgments involved in assessments (nursing diagnoses), along with the interventions, and outcomes related to the documentation of nursing care.

The benefits of using standardized nursing terminologies include:

(a) better communication among nurse and other healthcare providers,

(b) increased visibility of nursing interventions,

(c) improved patient care,

(d) enhanced data collection to evaluate nursing care outcomes,

(e) greater adherence to standards of care, and

(f) facilitation of assessment of nursing competency.

•Nursing terminology and classification systems have been developed to establish a standardized way to articulate nursing.

•These may be embedded in electronic health records, and leveraged to generate nursing knowledge.

•Studies to date have validated the systems in multiple geographic and clinical care settings.

•The application of these systems to generate new nursing knowledge, and to validate nursing practice has been limited to date.

In the era of evidenced based healthcare, nursing is required to demonstrate that care provided by nurses is associated with optimal patient outcomes, and a high degree of quality and safety. The use of standardized nursing terminologies and classification systems are a way that nursing documentation can be leveraged to generate evidence related to nursing practice. Several widely-reported nursing specific terminologies and classifications systems currently exist including the Clinical Care Classification System, International Classification for Nursing Practice®, Nursing Intervention Classification, Nursing Outcome Classification, Omaha System, Perioperative Nursing Data Set and NANDA International. However, the influence of these systems on demonstrating the value of nursing and the professions’ impact on quality, safety and patient outcomes has achieved success.