Standardized Terminologies: The Lingua Franca of Nursing

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Importance of Standardized Terminologies
To review, standardized terminology in nursing provides a common form of communication amongst all nurses across the country and even the globe. No matter the definition found for standardize terminology in nursing, the definitions all convey the sense of consistence and agreeance through “assessment, interventions, and outcomes related to documentation of nursing care.” Through the generalized acceptance of the standardize terminology used in the nursing profession today, nurses from different areas and fields of nursing practice can easily understand and identify the specific problem or intervention implied and the outcome observed. This is only achieved through commonly understood terminology such …show more content…

The standardize terminology fosters “better communication among nurse and other health care providers” with improved and enhanced communication of the care being implemented to a particular patient offering quality and consistent care to the patient (Rutherford, 2008). This process of standardize communication “increases visibility of nursing interventions” through exact documentation of what the nurse did for the patient during their shift instead of relying on “word-of-mouth” made at shift change (Rutherford, 2008). This type of verbal documentation of care from one nurse to another makes the work conducted by the nurse invisible if not documented appropriately. Through standardized terminology, documentation is easier and clearer making the work of the nurse known and easily accessed by all persons concerned in the patients care. “Enhanced data collection to evaluate nursing care outcomes” is also achieved through this form of terminology usage as well as “greater adherence to standards of care, and facilitated assessment of nursing competency” (Rutherford, …show more content…

For a particular patient, several nursing diagnoses, interventions, and outcomes are possible. This makes the nurse overall acquire more work through intervening and documenting when the nurse in most situations has more than one patient at a time. Though as a nursing student one is taught to use critical thinking, judgement, and reasoning to assign priority to the most pertinent problem of a particular patient or client, just one nursing diagnosis or just a few nursing interventions is not always the easiest even when implementing these critical thinking skills. The standardize terminology must, also be utilized in all facilities that involve nursing which is not the case and is cause of concern when implementing any new practice or

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