IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDIZED NURSING LANGUAGE

IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDIZED NURSING LANGUAGE

            According to Törnvall & Jansson (2017), nurses document their care using standardized nursing language, but they do not understand the rationale for doing so. It is, therefore, vital that nurses have a reason for employing standardized language in practice. Wildavsky (2017), stated that if something cannot be named, then, it cannot be practiced, taught, or put into public policy. The use of standardized nursing language is necessary to enhance communication of nursing care on the national and international levels. Thus, it alerts nurses on interventions that may not be current in their practice (Törnvall & Jansson,2017). Besides, the use of homogeneous nursing language is necessary to ensure nursing interventions can be accounted for. That is, nurses can express precisely what care they offer to their patients. For instance, in the NIC language under labor and induction, the nurse should re-evaluate cervical status, and confirm the fetal presenting part before starting further induction actions. Therefore, the nurse will be guided by the assessment findings of the cervix and the fetus and can account for every intervention he/she has taken in managing the woman in labor. Also, a standardized nursing language in documentation is needed to ensure consistency needed to compare outcomes for nursing interventions. Therefore, data collection aimed at improving nursing care outcomes is made easy.

In our maternity unit, electronic intrapartum fetal monitoring is a common intervention in monitoring fetal wellbeing. According to the NIC intervention of fetal monitoring, the midwife should be sure to distinguish fetal from maternal heart rate before commencing electronic fetal monitoring. Intrapartum fetal monitoring is done to evaluate the uterine activity, fetal wellbeing, and response of fetal heart rate to labor. This guides the nurse in making appropriate clinical judgments based on assessment findings, and initiate necessary measures where there is a deviation from normal fetal heart rate findings in labor. Assessment of fetal heart rate is done half-hourly in the first stage of labor, and after every contraction in the second stage of labor in our maternity unit..

REFERENCE

Törnvall, E., & Jansson, I. (2017). Preliminary evidence for the usefulness of standardized nursing terminologies in different fields of application: a literature review. International journal of nursing knowledge, 28(2), 109-119.

Wildavsky, A. (2017). Speaking truth to power: Art and craft of policy analysis. Routledge.