Nursing Minimum Data Set (NMDS) NMDS
Latest Update via UMLS NMDS- Not in UMLS Original Publication NMDS- 1983
The NMDS is a set of elements developed consistent with the general concept of a Uniform Minimum Health Data Set (UMHDS) and specifically intended for the collection of essential nursing care data. Under the leadership of Harriet Werley and Norma Lang, a national group of experts in nursing used a
Identifying Challenges and Opportunities within Standard Nursing Terminologies 21
consensus process to develop the NMDS (Interview, 2016). It was published in 1988 and recognized by ANA in 1999. The NMDS includes 16 items organized into categories of nursing care (diagnoses, interventions and outcomes and intensity of nursing care), patient demographics and service elements (e.g. facility identifier, nurse identifier, admission and discharge dates). The elements of NMDS can be used as a framework by other nursing terminologies such as NANDA, NIC and NOC.
Process for Updating/Publishing Standard The NMDS has not been updated since 1983. The original version stands as the accepted standard.
Usage/Activity Currently the NMDS is not in widespread use.
Challenges
The NMDS is designed to encompass the minimum core data elements regularly used by nurses across all care settings. The potential applicability and use of the minimum data sets are thus extremely broad.
Opportunities Adoption of NMDS as a core standard throughout the health care system, in conjunction with other relevant standards, such as terminologies, may ensure that elements are captured and recorded to follow the patient across care settings. Further, that continuity would support safer, better care for patients by providing robust, semantically interoperable documentation of nursing care that could have secondary uses for researching the efficacy and outcomes of nursing care.
Notably, NMDS calls for a unique number to identify the primary nursing care provider. This aligns with the growing need to:
Provide a measurement method for the individual nurse-patient care provided in value-based care; and
Better understand the relationship between nursing costs and resources with the quality and outcomes of care (Welton & Harper, Measuring Nursing Care Value, 2016).
Since the NMDS was last published, HIPAA established the National Provider Identifier (NPI). The broad definition of eligibility for assignment of an NPI (individuals or organizations that render health care as defined in regulation), may represent an opportunity for nurses throughout the health care system to obtain unique identifiers without incurring application, issuance or maintenance expense (NPI: What You Need To Know, 2004). However, this opportunity would require exploration and potentially issuance of clarifying educational guidance by HHS. Current guidance materials refer to individual providers as “sole proprietors,” and it may be unclear to many nurses who are not able to enroll in and bill insurers independently if or how they should apply for an NPI considering they do not furnish care as sole proprietors in the most commonly understood sense of the term.