Nursing Essay: Standardized Coding Systems in Nursing

The standardized coding system is the use of standardized language, especially by nurses. Based on the current analysis and statistics there are over thirteen different standardized coding systems which are used by nurses' communication and in their other conventional operations (Carrington, 2008).

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The use of standardized coding in nursing is essential because of the following; it is useful in interoperability which involves the coding of software systems that facilitate the securing of the patients information without where or how the information will be accessed. It is important in patient reporting, in this case, the coding is used in assessing outcomes in patients of different categories such as the diabetic patients. With this at hand, it helps to navigate across different arrays of unique data sets (Carrington, 2008). It is also very crucial in clinical support and decisions. For instance, the information which is related gets secured in an EMR which becomes readily available and easily accessible.

It facilitates workflow improvement, the use of synonyms and other terms can be converted into codes automatically, and the systems will help considerably to expedite documentation with time. It also gives a pathway for patients to access information since it eases and facilitates which patients can access which data and specific facilities. Other benefits of standardized coding language include; efficient communication of the nurses, enhanced visibility of the interventions of the nurses, advanced patient care and data collection which are helpful in the evaluation of health care outcomes. It helps in the assessment of nursing competency and collective adherence to the care standards (Ulmer et al. 2009). Based on my perception standard coding systems should be applied to all nursing practice.

In my specialty, I use documentation in surgical operations occasionally post-mortem or obstetrical patient. I usually document the information as small, moderate or large. But the implication does not correlate with the conventional meaning of the terms, but in this case, the patients benefit because the information is precise and in the assessment which dictates the nursing care for effective treatment of the patient. Documented information from Walden library (Rajab, 2005), the standardized coding system is used in the feeding of data on a computer since it is computer-compatible and thus helps to compressively analyze data and accomplish it in different perspectives which are very understandable to both patients and nurses.

References

Carrington, J. M. (2008). The Effectiveness of Electronic Health Record with Standardized Nursing Languages for Communicating Patient Status Related to a Clinical Event. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.

Institute of Medicine (U.S.), Ulmer, C., McFadden, B., & Nerenz, D. R. (2009). Race, ethnicity, and language data: standardization for health care quality improvement. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Rajab, A. A. (2005). A methodology for developing a nursing education minimum dataset. Tampa, Fla.: University of South Florida.