Reflection

Reflect on the nursing language that you use in your practice. Is the language shared by practitioners outside of your organization, in other words, do you speak the same language as your peers, perhaps in a different practice setting? If not, has this caused any problems with communication?

A systematic approach to naming is known as a nomenclature. Such terms are typically described according to a pre-established set of rules. Examples of nursing nomenclatures important to practice include SNO-MED and ICNP© (Coenen & Kim, 2010).

Informatics nurse specialists have documented current efforts toward meeting the demand for a reference terminology of nursing concepts. These specialists are building on the foundation of existing interface and administrative terminologies, and are collaborating with efforts to develop terminology across the spectrum of healthcare. Such efforts address the “languages” spoken by nurses in a variety of practice settings. These include but are not limited to

• NANDA – North American Nursing Diagnosis Association;
• NMDS – Nursing Minimum Data Set;
• HHCC – Home Healthcare Classification;
• OMAHA system, used in home care, hospice, public health, and prisons;
• NIC/NOC – Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC)/Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC); and
• PCDS – Patient Care Data Set. 

Let’s look at each language in more detail.

NANDA. The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) was first developed in 1950, and to date has grown to include a multitude of diagnoses (Whitley, 2009). Prelicensure nursing education programs often include nursing diagnoses in their curricula and serve as the basis for writing nursing care plans.