Information and Nursing Terminology in Health Care

Information has been a vital component of delivering quality healthcare services. Since the early 1970s, the healthcare information system has been critical in supporting the drive to manage healthcare resources more efficiently and effectively. The continued technological advancement in healthcare settings increases the demand for information. The information must be available and accessible to many people, have a lifespan that expands beyond the clinical encounter, and serve multiple and varied purposes. In the last few years, information and communication technologies have expanded the role of healthcare-related information, including knowledge management for healthcare service users and medical personnel. In the healthcare setting, handwriting, speech and text are powerful and flexible sources that do not require changing one’s perception of information. However, these traditional ways of receiving information can no longer meet the modern and future demands placed on the information, particularly in the wake of advances in natural language processing. As a result, such shortcoming, among others, has led to the development of several healthcare terms.

Nursing Terminology Used in My Area

Four years ago, my hospital initiated a new computer software system called EPIC that promised to simplify the complex hospital system and incorporate the diversity of human recourses involved in patient care. This new software provides a visual and friendly program allowing nurses and other interdisciplinary team members to share and receive real-time orders and data from on-site and remote places. NANDA is the source of nursing terminology used in my practice, founded in the early 1980s. It develops research and disseminates criteria and taxonomy for nursing diagnosis. The terminology offers a starting point for evaluating the nursing diagnosis. It is essential since it offers multiple perspectives on diagnosis and recognizes that using an accredited nursing valuation framework is essential to identify patients’ problems and outcomes. Moreover, NANDA supports applying more than one assessment tool and embraces an evidence-based model such as Gordon’s Functional Health Pattern assessment that supports the nurses in determining the NANDA nursing diagnosis. For a more accurate and precise diagnosis, a useful evidence-based assessment is essential, and NANDA defines the patient as an individual, group or community that makes it possible to establish an efficient diagnosis.

Development of NANDA Terminology

NANDA was established in the early 1980s. The terminology grew out of the National Conference Group, a committee instituted in 1973 at the first conference on the classification of nursing diagnostic strategies held in Missouri. The conference participants developed a classification composed of an alphabetized list of nursing diagnoses. Following several periodic meetings, the classification committee realized the need for new comprehensive taxonomic structures. The committee determined whether the classification emerged naturally from the recognized diagnosis data. In 1994, Round 1 of a naturalistic Q-sort was instituted in Nashville, USA. After that, the second round of the list was developed, and the analysis was submitted during the 12th conference held in Pennsylvania in 1996. However, the Q-sort yielded 21 categories that were excessive for any practical use. In 1998, the committee submitted four different Q-sorts using four varied frameworks to the NANDA board. Thus, there was Framework 1, which was grounded on the naturalistic styles, Framework 2, which was based on Jenny’s ideas, Framework 3, based on Nursing Outcome Classification and Framework 4, which used the Gordon Functional Health Patterns. Although none of the frameworks was adequate, Gordon’s was considered efficient. Therefore, with Gordon’s consent, the committee modified the framework to develop Framework 5, presented at the conference in 1998 in Nashville, and ultimately 40 different usable data sets for analysis were established. Based on the data analysis and field notes, further modifications were implemented in the framework. Now, one domain of the original framework was divided to reduce the number of classes and diagnoses within its realm. Therefore, a separate domain for growth and development was added since the original framework lacked it. Moreover, other multiple domains were revised to ensure they better reflected the content of the diagnoses. Although the taxonomic structure is much less like Gordon’s original framework, with reduced misclassification error and redundancy that is close to zero, this variant is much desired in taxonomic structures. Concerning the meanings, they were established for all fields and classes within the classification structures. The definition of each diagnosis was compared with that of the class and domain within which it was placed. In 2002, following the NANDA conference in Chicago, the approved diagnoses were placed under Taxonomic II, which entails 11 health promotion and newly certified nursing diagnoses.

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