Clinical Data Standards: It's Now or Never for the Nursing Profession.

Abstract

Clinical data standards offer the nursing profession the opportunity to examine patient outcomes within organizations and across the healthcare system and to explore opportunities to improve clinical practice and support care transitions. In addition, the collection of standardized clinical data can facilitate our understanding of what models of care produce better outcomes in different sectors of the healthcare system. Yet, the nursing profession has been slow in advocating for the adoption of clinical data standards. Without further action to advance the uptake of standardized clinical data, the profession risks having the impact of their practice become invisible, particularly in the context of emerging clinical artificial intelligence tools. This may lead to devastating downstream effects on the nursing profession and the health of Canadians.