Measuring the nursing contribution using electronic records.

This article is the third in a series of four, looking at the impact on the nursing profession of the increasing demand to demonstrate the nursing contribution to patient care in terms of quality and performance. Information management processes and indicators for the measurement of care are described. The necessary improvements that need to be made to patient records to support integrated care in the future and examples of nursing classifications are also provided. The article examines the roles and responsibilities of nurses as data collectors and concludes that strong nursing leadership in the field of informatics is needed to influence and shape the data collected and ensure that nurses' professional contribution to patient care is captured.