|
|
|
|
|
|
|
needs to produce certain outcomes" (McCloskey and Bulechek 1994a, 57). In the eyes of the NIC creators, the classification system provides such a standardized language for nursing treatments that can be used across units, health care settings, and health care disciplines. A classification alone would be useful for costing, recordkeeping, and teaching, but the linguistic aspect is necessary for research and comparability. This intention was clearly expressed in several interviews: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Certainly we are aiming at standardizing nursing languages. So that when we talk among other nurses and other health professionals we all know what we talk about. Because what one nurse might be talking about is very different (from another nurse). What is the difference between therapeutic play and play therapy? And then we need to communicate with parents, consumers, patients, physicians and other health professionals and knowing that they are talking the same language. It is really important that we talk in a language that is not foreign to other groups. Maybe we like to be unique, but sometimes we need to bend so that we talk the same language as families, consumers, and medical professionals. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A hospital administrator asked me a couple of years ago whether nurses could just tell him what they do. You can't say "the nursing process" because everyone does nursing assessment, intervention. That is a model that everyone can apply. Physical therapists can say what they do: muscles and bones. Respiratory therapists can define their tasks. But nurses do all that. Nursing is so broad. The only thing that they know is that they can't work without us. NIC is extremely helpful because it provides a language with a firm scientific base to communicate what we do. (Interview with JoAnne McCloskey 4/6/94). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thus NIC is seen as providing the means for rendering all nursing work comparable. To study the effectiveness of nursing care, the nursing profession proposed the uniform and routine collection of essential nursing information or a nursing minimum data set (NMDS) (Werley and Lang 1988; Werley, Lang, and Westlake 1986). "The purpose of the NMDS is to foster comparability of nursing care across patient populations, with the ultimate goal the improvement of health care" (McCloskey and Bulechek 1994a, 56). This data set consists of sixteen data elements, including four nursing care elements: nursing diagnoses, nursing interventions, nursing outcomes, and nursing intensity. NIC is promoted by its creators as providing the nursing intervention variable for the NMDS. A standardized language is also necessary to communicate with extant information systems. As a universal, scientific language, NIC is targeting inclusion in the unified medical language system (UMLS)a spearhead of the drive for a standardized for all health care information systems. |
|
|
|
|
|