20000526-Information technology will allow more time to be spent with patients

"The Nursing Care Process (NCP) ensures that the professional reflects on what the patient expects from him/her from a methodology that guarantees a good internship. In addition, it lets other professionals know what nurses solve". With these words, the director of the University School of Nursing of the University of Navarra, Mª Isabel Saracíbar, referred to the PAE, which has been implemented in Spain for some years throughout the country.

The framework of these statements was the presentation of the III International Symposium on Nursing Diagnoses, organized by the association Spanish Nomenclature, Taxonomy and Nursing Diagnoses (AENTDE), held at the University of Navarra on May 25 and 26. With the degree scroll "From nursing conceptualization to computerization", the meeting brings together 400 professionals from Spain, the USA and Great Britain.

The PAE, according to Saracíbar, "ensures that nursing professionals' care of the patient is based on a scientific method, not on chance. It begins with a evaluation that is maintained throughout the treatment, continues with the identification of the patient's problems and the application of care, and ends with the assessment to find out if the objectives have been achieved. It is a very dynamic process.

Unify the language

In order to consolidate the PAE, the specific language used by nursing professionals needs to be unified: "The University of Navarra," explained Saracíbar, "has been researching for more than ten years on nursing care and how to achieve standardization; in other words, that all nurses, internationally speaking, use the same language and understand each other, both with written and computerized documentation".

According to Mercedes Ugalde, president of AENTDE, "there is an international movement towards the standardization of language, because today's society requires more scientism. In addition, hospitals are becoming more computerized, so there is a need for standardized languages that can be processed. And that is the reason for this international movement to call what we do in the same way. Informatics will help us take better care of people and improve healthcare for the population.

Now, the Ministry of Health is introducing in computerized instructions the work of health professionals. Saracíbar commented in this respect that "the Spanish National Nursing committee has reached an agreement agreement whereby the information relating to the internship nurse will be introduced together with this base, called the Minimum Set of data Basics. This is important because professionals will be able to access these instructions of data and consult what they need to know about their patients".

Thus, care will be better: "Perhaps at first the patient will not notice anything but, in the long run, he will see that, by having the information standardized, the nursing professional will write less, which will allow him to spend more time with him, thanks to the more agile management of the data", according to Saracíbar.