Agreement on nursing terminology: the key to technology-based outcomes management

Automated technology is critical to the efficient and effective documentation and aggregation of outcomes data. Although the technology exists to accomplish this, it is impeded by the lack of agreement within the nursing community about outcomes-related terminology. To be measured, outcomes must be codified, referring to consistent expression and definition of outcomes. This goal has not yet been reached in nursing. Minimum data sets have been established for nursing, and work is under way to develop the related terms. The development of terms will be accelerated by mapping, in which like terms are grouped (or mapped) together to indicate the same meaning.