ICN and IHTSDO partner to provide a new Informatics Resources for nurses

International Council of Nurses (ICN) and International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO)
partner to provide a new Informatics Resources for nurses

Geneva, Switzerland, Copenhagen, Denmark, 20 January 2014 - The International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) are pleased to announce an equivalency table between the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) concepts and SNOMED CT concepts. The table contains ICNP Diagnosis and Outcomes Statements that have semantic equivalencies with SNOMED CT concepts.

ICNP is an international standard that facilitates the description and comparison of nursing practice locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The ICNP terminology serves a critical role for ICN in facilitating representation of the domain of nursing practice worldwide to promote evidenced based quality care. ICNP provides nurses with content solutions for electronic health records (EHRs) at all levels to support data-based information for use in practice, administration, education and research. SNOMED CT, a multidisciplinary international healthcare terminology, is designed to support the entry and retrieval of clinical concepts in electronic record systems and the safe, accurate, and effective exchange of health information.

“This equivalency table between ICNP and SNOMED CT is a tangible demonstration of how collaboration among standards development organisations can contribute to improved and standardized documentation of healthcare delivery,” noted ICN CEO David Benton. “Greater standardization supports the larger goal of interoperability of systems as well as better understanding of the contributions that each discipline makes to health outcomes and the effective and efficient use of health resources.“

“The IHTSDO is pleased to see this work being made available to users internationally and hopes that there will be feedback on its usage over time in supporting the care of individuals on a multidisciplinary basis. Continued collaboration with ICN is important to the IHTSDO going forward, providing a key link to the nursing profession internationally” said Jane Millar, Head of Collaboration at IHTSDO.

This new product advances the collaboration on terminology development agreed between ICN and IHTSDO in their 2010 harmonization agreement by allowing ICN to make the equivalency table available through its website at the ICNP Download page ( http://www.icn.ch/pillarsprograms/icnp-download/ ). Although this table is not formally endorsed by IHTSDO, persons interested in using it should review the terms of the SNOMED CT Affiliate License before downloading ( www.ihtsdo.org/licence.pdf ).

The product can be a useful resource to nurses and healthcare facilities interested in using SNOMED CT for documentation in EHRs and using ICNP to help identify clinically relevant content for use in documentation of nursing care.

An additional product from ICN, the ICNP Technical Implementation Guide, was also recently released with the intent of supporting ICNP users, from vendors to nurses in care delivery settings. When used alongside documentation available on the IHTSDO website ( http://ihtsdo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/ ), the Implementation Guide will be of particular use to those who choose to access and use the ICNP-SNOMED CT Equivalency Table in that it gives details about applications that use ICNP, approaches to implementation, structure and content of ICNP, and technical overview. The ICNP Implementation Guide is available on the ICN website ( www.icn.ch/pillarsprograms/implementing-icnpr/ ).

My source: Amy L Amherdt, icn-ehealth