Editor’s Note 

As part of our Gordon Scholar series and our November focus on Innovation in Nursing Practice, Dr. Luca Bertocchi explores how artificial intelligence, digital health technologies, and standardized nursing terminologies are creating new opportunities for nursing practice. He considers how structured nursing data can support clinical decision-making and make nursing contributions more visible, while emphasizing the importance of preserving nurses’ clinical judgment and a holistic, person-centered approach to care as technology continues to evolve. 

Innovation in Nursing Practice 

Nursing Data and the Opportunities of AI 

Today, technological innovation is transforming every sector of society, and nursing is no exception. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the increasing use of big data, and advances in digital health technologies are opening possibilities that, until a few years ago, seemed futuristic. These developments have the potential to influence not only nurses’ daily work but also patient outcomes and the way nursing contributions are recognized, measured, and valued. 

A key foundation of this transformation is the availability of large amounts of data generated through nursing documentation. In this context, Standardized Nursing Terminologies (SNTs) play a fundamental role. Only through structured and shared documentation can we generate comparable data that advanced information systems can analyze and use. Previous research has shown that nursing diagnoses can be associated with patient outcomes and possess significant predictive potential. Today, AI offers an unprecedented opportunity to leverage these data, making the impact of nursing care on patients more visible and tangible than ever before. 

Within this evolving landscape, Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs), and particularly Nursing Process-CDSSs, have emerged as promising tools to support nurses in clinical decision-making. The key word, however, is support. Clinical judgment, professional accountability, and leadership of the care process must remain firmly in the nurse’s hands. When designed and implemented appropriately, these systems can help identify patient needs, suggest evidence-informed interventions, and support more informed clinical decisions. 

AI-enabled applications are already emerging in nursing practice. Examples include systems that identify patients at risk of clinical deterioration, support clinical decision-making, and reduce documentation burden through automated information management. These developments demonstrate that AI is no longer a future possibility, but an emerging reality in nursing practice. 

Making Technology Work for Nursing Practice 

For these technologies to truly improve clinical practice, their real-world applicability must be carefully considered. Nursing care takes place in complex environments characterized by multiple competing priorities and demanding workloads. Documentation should not add cognitive burden but should support nursing practice. Consequently, new technologies must be developed with usability and simplicity in mind, with clinical nurses actively involved in their design and implementation. Otherwise, even the most promising innovations risk failing to deliver meaningful benefits. 

Implementing standardized nursing terminologies therefore depends not only on technology itself, but also on awareness of their importance at every level of the healthcare system: political, managerial, educational, and clinical. 

Preserving a Person-Centered Approach in a Digital Future 

This may be the most important cultural shift facing nursing today. For years, we have repeated the phrase: “If we do not document, we are invisible.” In the age of Artificial Intelligence, this statement may need to evolve into something more profound: “If we do not document in a unitary way, we are invisible.” The challenge is not merely to document more, but to document better. In a future driven by artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and increasingly sophisticated decision-support systems, data that represent the complexity of human experience will be increasingly valuable. Nursing’s challenge will therefore not simply be collecting information, but documenting the manifestations and patterns of the person as an irreducible whole. 

Standardized nursing terminologies can serve as the bridge between this unitary view of the person and the need to communicate, share, and make nursing contributions visible within healthcare systems of the future. The goal is not to reduce human complexity to codes or classifications, but to use these tools to make visible, documentable, and analyzable what would otherwise remain hidden. In this sense, SNTs do not limit a unitary vision of the person. Rather, they may represent a means of preserving and communicating that vision within increasingly digital environments shaped by algorithms and advanced technologies. Ensuring that AI systems are informed by an authentically nursing perspective of the person may become one of the profession’s most important challenges in the years ahead. 

These emerging realities call for new theoretical and professional reflections. The nurse of the future must be able to integrate technology, data, and AI while maintaining an unwavering commitment to person-centered care. Standardized nursing terminologies, beyond serving as communication tools, may become critical instruments for making nursing contributions visible, measurable, and recognizable within increasingly technology-driven healthcare systems. 

This brief reflection does not aim to provide definitive answers. Instead, it invites us to consider a fundamental question: As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare, will nursing be able to ensure that the data, technologies, and systems of the future continue to reflect a unitary understanding of the person and make nursing contributions truly visible? 

About the Author 

Dr. Luca Bertocchi, RN, MSN, PhD, is an onco-hematologic nurse and Adjunct Professor of Epistemology and Nursing Theories at the University of Trieste in Italy. He is a member of the current cohort of Gordon Scholars in The Marjory Gordon Program for Knowledge Development, Clinical Reasoning & Decision Making. Through this international program, a collaboration between the International Nursing Knowledge Association (INKA) and the Boston College Connell School of Nursing, Gordon Scholars work with mentors and colleagues from around the world to advance assessment-driven, diagnosis-centered nursing knowledge and clinical reasoning, and NANDA 360. The Gordon Scholars’ work has informed practice, scholarship, policy, and instruction worldwide. 

Dr. Bertocchi’s research focuses on standardized nursing terminologies and their impact on patient and organizational outcomes, with particular interest in how structured nursing documentation can improve clinical practice, strengthen interdisciplinary communication, and make nursing contributions to patient care more visible.