The step from RN to BSN involves a better understanding of the nursing profession. The goal of nursing is to promote self care, good nutrition and relaxation, activities that are extremely necessary but difficult to measure. To achieve this goal, it is imperative to conventionalize a set of nursing terminology standards so that the care remains constant across ages, genders, facilities, societies, countries, and cultures
There are certain standards organizations that are now collaborating in order to come up with standards for nursing terminologies. There organizations include CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation or European Committee for Standardization), ISO (International Organization for Standardization), and the Nursing Vocabulary Summit. They work towards a standardized set of nursing terminologies to improve coherence within the profession and with patients, as well as in other areas of health care.
Studies and steps towards standard nursing terminologies have begun as early as the 1970s and achieved significant developments in the 1990s. Information is very important in health care, needless to say. Health care providers and suppliers not understanding each other in the carrying out of orders or procedures could lead to disastrous results.
Misunderstanding in terminologies leads to unnecessary anxiety in the part of the patient. For instance, a nurse may inform a patient that he or she has benign lesion on the liver. The patient could get stressed out hearing the words “lesion” and “liver,” but completely not understand “benign”, which is not a day-to-day vocabulary.
Language, information and technology do not stop developing, and these three seem to always grow hand in hand. Developments in Information Technology, for instance, have given rise to new terminologies that are now widely accepted as part of regular vocabulary. A few decades ago, the terms “Internet”, “e-mail”, and “Facebook” were completely non-existent.
Developments in communication technologies require nurses and health practitioners to better manage health-related information in order to guarantee understanding within the ranks and among patients. Nurses are also now expected to be capable in using modern technology. Patient records are now electronically generated and kept, and evidence-based medical practice has become more vital more than ever.
As nurses make the RN-BSN transition in their career, they would further understand the need to elaborate on the controlled nursing vocabulary. This means a restricted set of phrases that is normally used in preparing medical reports. A sample diagnosis using controlled phrase is “Chronic pain”.
Controlled vocabulary in nursing is listed by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association Taxonomy 1, Nursing Interventions Classification and Georgetown Home Health Care. Phrases on these lists are very limiting. Using the diagnosis “Chronic pain” as example, it is not clear how severe the pain is or where it is located.
Controlled terminologies may be helpful in some ways. For instance, in the urgency of events, it is very helpful for nurses, doctors and other medical practitioners to give out clear, concise and specific reports or diagnoses. In the interest of patients, however, they may be confusing, since not many patients would clarify, “Does ‘benign’ mean good or bad?”
As nurses move from RN to BSN, there are improvements of service involved, including a better understand or grasp of nursing terminologies. These are, in fact, included in the RN to BSN programs. All such studies are focused to accomplishing one main goal: the health, welfare and relaxation of patients.