computers/nursing care/languages

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

Interesting how this topic has progressed........

I agree with the poster that felt computers or computerized documentation systems are just tools to help aide nursing practice and patient care. Issues such as poor processes, understaffing and increased patient acuity and patient load need to be addressed seperate from the use of technology. If you already have inadaquate processes in place implementing a new system will only take a bad situation and turn it into an even worse one.

Related to Nursing language (nomenclature) and investigating which classification system to use.

Much work has been done to develop a nursing language that includes nursing diagnosis (NANDA), interventions (NIC, Saba, Omaha) and outcomes (NIC, Omaha). Referred to collectively as the Nursing Minimum Data Set.

All of the above nomenclatures have been recognized by the ANA for inclusion in a Unified Nursing Language System, all are in the process of being added to the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System but none were developed PRIMARILY for use in automated clinical information

systems, are considered complete, comprehensive or without inconsistencies.

SNOMED has been working on a "universal" or international language and coding systems and might be considered the most interdisciplinary of the nomenclatures to date.

[Mariah]

Normenclatures are important to nursing because if you can't identify it or can't measure it, then you can't prove anything and you can't improve anything. Unfortunately, one problem with normenclature, especially for world-wide companies, is that NIC, NANDA, and NOC are predominately US. Other countries may adopt them, but many of them are also looking into ICNP and their own countries specific normenclature. SNOMED is not world-wide accepted nor mandated by governments. UMLS is predominately US. Normenclatures, although a particular one may not be perfect, are important to any clinical system and many vendors are aware of this fact.