[A computerized nursing care and services management tool]

The Quebec government has initiated a project to review the funding of health care establishments by determining the average cost of a hospital stay. A committee of nursing directors studied existing nursing care measurement tools and decided to develop a new tool better suited to computerized care plans. The new tool is called MESSII, after the French acronym "Mesure des soins et des services infirmiers informatisée," meaning computerized measurement of nursing care and services. This article presents the development and validation stages of MESSII.