An international standard for nursing terminologies

The plethora of nursing terminologies in use across the world has motivated the development of an International Standard (ISO FDIS 18104) for statements describing nursing diagnoses and nursing actions. The Standard has the potential to enhance the quality of individual terminologies, to promote consistency across a range of terminologies, to facilitate re-use in terminology development and to support integration with terminologies used in other domains. The Standard represents a significant achievement. However, attention must now turn away from consensus building and towards practical application. This paper presents an overview of the Standard and argues the need for further work around tools, validation and user guidance