Locating nursing classification schemes within health information strategies for New Zealand

The potential to use classification schemes to describe and measure nursing in a country that has previously not used them as a part of practice is fraught with issues. Such is the case for New Zealand. Without nursing specific classification scheme use in the information systems of day to day function, nursing cannot validate what it does and the difference it makes to health outcomes for New Zealanders. The local use of valid and reliable classification schemes as tools to capture locally generated data that is able to be used as quality data needs to be considered alongside the national use of reliable clinical reference tools that are consistent with international standards. This may make the difference to the potential for significant contribution of nursing practice specific data to health information collections in preference to a 'one fits all' approach to user interface nursing classification scheme adoption at a local level. Tensions between a top-down approach and a locally based bottoms-up practice based approach and associated issues provide the core to this paper.