Use of standardized nursing languages has many inherent advantages.
Optimal communication among nurses and other health care providers
Improvement in communication is guaranteed if standard nursing language is used. There is improved communication with other members of the nursing staff, other health care professionals and also hospital administrators.
Increased visibility of nursing interventions
It is important that nurses are able to express exactly the interventions they perform on their patients. This will make the work of nurses more visible and improve the process of proper documentation of patient care.
Improved patient care
There is a potential for improved patient care with standardized nursing language. This is because nurses will be able to focus on the standardized intervention for patient's conditions or diagnosis and be able to monitor progress of care in a standardized manner.
Enhanced data collection
Data collection for the purpose of evaluation of the quality of care and record of nursing care would also be easy. It will also be easy uniformly pool data from other centers for the purpose of research.
Use of standardized language can also facilitate the assessment of competence of the nursing staff. A good knowledge of the standardized language would translate to a good knowledge of nursing interventions. A poor knowledge of the standardized language on the other hand would also mean that the nursing staff may not be able to implement the standardized care or interventions to the patient.
In my opinion, all cadres of nursing staff in all specialties should have the knowledge of these standardized languages. This will ensure that a nurse in one specialty can fully understand what another nurse in another specialty communicates either written or verbal.
References
American Nurses Association. (2008). Nursing informatics: Scope & standards of practice. Silver Springs, MD: Author.
Rutherford, M. A. (2008). Standardized nursing language: What does it mean for nursing practice?OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 13(1). Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/vol13
www.amsn.org. (n.d.). Scope and Standards. Retrieved from http://www.amsn.org/practice-resources/scope-and-standards
