To have and to hold: nursing information in the 1990s and beyond

Within contemporary nursing a tension exists between the need to develop nursing related databases, and the philosophical underpinning of current nursing care. The arguments 'for' include the need to counteract the substitution of nurses by care attendants, the move towards evidence-based practice, and an increasing use of information technology in health care. Arguments against include the philosophies of holism, the reliance of nurse clinicians on verbal communication, the complexity of nursing data, and cumbersome nature of contemporary information systems. In a healthcare context where the value of nursing must be demonstrated, nurses will need to explore avenues that capitalise on the benefits offered by the establishment of nursing specific data bases, without compromising the preferred standard of nursing care. It is timely that contemporary activities designed to establish common nursing data sets be reviewed. Nursing minimum data sets, unified nursing languages, and more recent approaches including natural language systems, conceptual graphs, multi-axial taxonomies and multi media interfaces, make up an often confusing potpourri of approaches. The intention of this paper is to provide explanations and examples of each approach in an effort to reduce confusion and stimulate further debate.