Informatics
Response by Larry William Hertel to the OJIN Informatics Column
Dear Editor:
I write in response to the OJIN Informatics Column and the recent content about nursing terminologies. I have always loved standardized nursing languages and am even happier that there are now a total of 3 that I happen to particularly like. These 3 are as follows: NANDA (North American Nursing Diagnosis Association; Herdman, 2012), NIC (Nursing Interventions Classification; Bulechek, Butcher, Dochterman, & Wagner, 2013) and NOC (Nursing Outcomes Classification; Moorhead, Johnson, Maas, & Swanson, 2013). What is particularly rewarding about them is that they help to differentiate the discipline of nursing from the discipline of medicine. Nursing has indeed become a scholarly discipline of its own.
NANDA started the revolution in the 1970s and NIC and NOC were started and researched by an expert faculty at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. All 3 languages are becoming internationally recognized. This is one great big step forward in unifying the discipline of nursing worldwide.
With this now the case, is it not now time to go one step forward? Is it not time that we have all practicing nurses utilizing these cutting edge languages in their daily professional practices? It naturally follows, then, that the time has come to reflect these standardized languages with content in Registered Nurse licensing exams worldwide. What a better way to unify the nursing profession!
It is high time that we begin the dialogue of including these 3 languages in the Registered Nurse licensing exams! There is no need to wait any longer. The time is now that we begin this important task.
I feel so strongly about standardized nursing languages and their value to our discipline of nursing that I even wonder whether they should also be included in the Licensed Practical Nurse/Licensed Vocational Nurse licensing exam. I would be interested to know what readers think. Let's keep moving nursing forward.
Sincerely,
Larry William Hertel, MSN
P.O. Box 203
South Amana, Iowa 52334
larryhertel@southslope.net
References
Bulechek, G., Butcher, H., Dochterman, J., & Wagner, C. (Eds.). (2013). Nursing interventions classification (NIC) (6th Ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.
Herdman, T.H. (Ed.). (2012). NANDA international nursing diagnoses: Definitions and classification 2012 - 2014. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Moorhead, S., Johnson, M., Maas, M. & Swanson, E. (Eds.). (2013). Nursing outcomes classifications (NOC): Measurement of health outcomes. (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.
