A Canadian nursing minimum data set: a major priority

Through a selected review of existing hospital and health care minimum data sets in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, the authors expose the nursing data gaps in those data sets. Nurses in the United States have responded to these data gaps through the development of a Nursing Minimum Data Set (NMDS). The NMDS is a tool for abstracting a uniform collection of essential nursing data from the patient record usually at hospital discharge. The nursing care data elements in the NMDS include: nursing diagnosis, nursing intervention, nursing outcome, and intensity of nursing care. A major factor influencing the move to generate an NMDS in Canada is the response to the need to contain rising health care costs while maintaining quality health care. The NMDS has profound implications for nurses in all practice settings through use of these data in: costing of nursing services; defending resource allocation to nursing; defining nursing's contribution to patient care; defining outcomes of nursing care; developing nursing knowledge; and continued growth of nursing as a profession. Initiatives in Canada directed at the development of an NMDS indicate a heightened awareness of the need for the collection, storage and retrieval of nursing data. However, nurses in Canada have yet to define the essential nursing data elements for inclusion in a national health information system for use in Canada.