A comparison of nursing intervention classification and current procedural terminology codes for representing nursing...

The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to compare the ability of terms from the nursing intervention classification and from the current procedural terminology to represent the clinical terms used by nurses and patients to describe nursing interventions during hospitalization; and 2) to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the two classification systems for representing nursing systems. More NIC than CPT codes matched the concepts in the clinical terms used by nurses and patients to describe nursing interventions demonstrating, not unexpectedly, that NIC represents a broader scope of nursing practice. The major difficulty encountered using NIC was the lack of mutual exclusiveness of the nursing activities within the interventions. CPT codes were easy to apply to the clinical terms, but were limited in scope for nursing practice. The findings of this study demonstrate the necessity of using a nursing-specific classification system for the representation of nursing interventions. This is of particular importance for databases that will be used to examine the effectiveness of healthcare interventions and for databases related to reimbursement for healthcare interventions.