TY - JOUR
T1 - An overview and policy implications of national nurse identifier systems
T2 - A call for unity and integration
AU - Chan, Garrett K.
AU - Cummins, Mollie R.
AU - Taylor, Cheryl S.
AU - Rambur, Betty
AU - Auerbach, David I.
AU - Meadows-Oliver, Mikki
AU - Cooke, Cindy
AU - Turek, Emily A.
AU - Pittman, Patricia (Polly)
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - There is a clear and growing need to be able record and track the contributions of individual registered nurses (RNs) to patient care and patient care outcomes in the US and also understand the state of the nursing workforce. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, The Future of Nursing 2020–2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity (2021), identified the need to track nurses’ collective and individual contributions to patient care outcomes. This capability depends upon the adoption of a unique nurse identifier and its implementation within electronic health records. Additionally, there is a need to understand the nature and characteristics of the overall nursing workforce including supply and demand, turnover, attrition, credentialing, and geographic areas of practice. This need for data to support workforce studies and planning is dependent upon comprehensive databases describing the nursing workforce, with unique nurse identification to support linkage across data sources. There are two existing national nurse identifiers– the National Provider Identifier and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Identifier. This article provides an overview of these two national nurse identifiers; reviews three databases that are not nurse specific to understand lessons learned in the development of those databases; and discusses the ethical, legal, social, diversity, equity, and inclusion implications of a unique nurse identifier.
AB - There is a clear and growing need to be able record and track the contributions of individual registered nurses (RNs) to patient care and patient care outcomes in the US and also understand the state of the nursing workforce. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, The Future of Nursing 2020–2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity (2021), identified the need to track nurses’ collective and individual contributions to patient care outcomes. This capability depends upon the adoption of a unique nurse identifier and its implementation within electronic health records. Additionally, there is a need to understand the nature and characteristics of the overall nursing workforce including supply and demand, turnover, attrition, credentialing, and geographic areas of practice. This need for data to support workforce studies and planning is dependent upon comprehensive databases describing the nursing workforce, with unique nurse identification to support linkage across data sources. There are two existing national nurse identifiers– the National Provider Identifier and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Identifier. This article provides an overview of these two national nurse identifiers; reviews three databases that are not nurse specific to understand lessons learned in the development of those databases; and discusses the ethical, legal, social, diversity, equity, and inclusion implications of a unique nurse identifier.
KW - Ethics
KW - National Council of State Boards of Nursing Identifier
KW - National provider identifier
KW - Nurse identifier
KW - Nursing workforce
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146442833&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.outlook.2022.10.005
DO - 10.1016/j.outlook.2022.10.005
M3 - Article
C2 - 36641315
AN - SCOPUS:85146442833
SN - 0029-6554
VL - 71
JO - Nursing outlook
JF - Nursing outlook
IS - 2
M1 - 101892
ER -