ICNP

 

The International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP),

classifies patient data and clinical activity in the domain of nursing and can be used for decision-making and policy development aimed at improving health status and health care delivery. ICNP can improve communication and statistical reporting practices across health services. ICNP, a product of the International Council of Nurses (ICN), is a formal terminology.  It provides a dictionary of terms and expressive relationships that nurses can use to describe and report their practice in a systematic way. The resulting information is used reliably to support care and effective decision-making, and inform nursing education, research and health policy. ICNP is intended for use by and for nurses. It is a rich and comprehensive resource that nurses can use to describe and report in detail the things that they assess and the things that they provide. The potential benefits of a consistent approach to capturing nursing data are far-reaching.

 

Classification structure

ICNP has a formal foundation that is used to compose and represent diagnoses, interventions, and outcomes. A number of subsets are available to provide pre-coordinated concepts for select health priorities, including nursing outcome indicators, pediatric pain management, palliative care, and partnering with patients and families to promote adherence to treatment.

 

 

Vision

ICNP is an integral part of the global information infrastructure informing health care practice and policy to improve patient care worldwide.

Goals

• Serve as a major force to articulate nursing’s contribution to health and health care globally.
• Promote harmonization with other widely used classifications and the work of standardization groups in health and nursing.

Benefits to nursing

• Establishes an international standard to facilitate description and comparison of nursing practice
• Serves as a unifying nursing language system for international nursing based on state-of-the-art terminology standards
• Represents nursing concepts used in local, regional, national and international practice, across specialties, languages and cultures
• Generates information about nursing practice that will influence decision-making, education and policy in the areas of patient needs, nursing interventions, health outcomes, and resource utilization
• Facilitates the development of nursing data sets used in research to direct policy by describing and comparing nursing care of individuals, families and communities world wide
• Improves communication within the discipline of nursing and across other disciplines
• Encourages nurses to reflect on their own practice and influence improvements in quality of care.

Resources

How do terms get picked?

Unifying nursing through the use of ICNP

Why ICNP?