Background:

International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED-CT) have had a long history of collaboration. This collaboration has developed into a worldwide need to identify how ICNP would integrate within SNOMED-CT. The ICNP catalogues are subsets of precoordinated nursing diagnoses, outcomes, and intervention statements for a selected client population and health priority. The mapping project provides a crosswalk between ICNP and SNOMED-CT.

Method:

The ICNP seven-axis model version 1.0 concepts were mapped to SNOMED-CT using CLUE browser 5.0. The initial mappings were validated by experts from both ICNP and SNOMED-CT. Additionally, the precoordinated nursing diagnoses and nursing intervention statements or ICNP catalogue concepts were mapped to SNOMED-CT and again followed by a validation process.

Results:

A large percentage of both primitive or ICNP seven-axis model concepts were able to be mapped to SNOMED-CT. For the ICNP catalogue statement, the ICNP nursing interventions were more consistently and easily mapped than were the ICNP nursing diagnoses. Mapping rules were created during the process to guide decisions for mapping and recommendations to improve future mapping.

Conclusion:

Draft mapping principles, processes, and strategies that were necessary to consistently integrate ICNP concepts within the SNOMED-CT concept model were developed. Improvements to synonymy and adding missing concepts would contribute to greater harmonization of ICNP nursing diagnoses and interventions catalogue statements into SNOMED-CT.