Perioperative Nursing Data Set (PNDS) and Standardized Perioperative Record (SPR)
AORN has taken the lead in developing and promoting the Perioperative Nursing Data Set (PNDS), a standardized language that facilitates the documentation and evaluation of the care provided by perioperative nurses. Now, AORN has embarked on an initiative to create a standardized perioperative record (SPR) that will be integrated into perioperative information systems and that incorporates the PNDS.
Read on to learn about the history, model, and benefits of the PNDS, as well as its use in benchmarking, and sign-up to receive updates on the SPR project.
PNDS Overview
The Perioperative Nursing Data Set (PNDS) is the first of its kind: a standardized nursing vocabulary that addresses the perioperative patient experience from pre-admission until discharge. As a nursing language, PNDS is parsimonious, validated, reliable, and useful for clinical practice.
To date, PNDS is the only nursing language developed by a specialty organization, the members of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), which has been recognized by the American Nurses Association (ANA) as a data set useful for perioperative nursing practice.
The PNDS can serve many purposes, depending on the audience and user. A few examples of these potential uses include:
- Providing a framework to standardize documentation
- Providing a universal language for perioperative nursing practice and education
- Assisting in the measurement and evaluation of patient care outcomes
- Providing a foundation for perioperative nursing research and evaluation of patient outcomes
- Informing decisions about the relationship of staffing to patient outcomes
- Providing data about the contributions of nurses to patient outcomes in the perioperative arena
AORN is the premier organization of over 40,000 perioperative registered nurses and its members who provide professional nursing care in perioperative settings all over the world. Their clinical expertise is reflected in the PNDS, in that it is an empirically based, inductively derived, and clinically validated nursing language that is useful for clinical practice, education, and research.
PNDS Publications from AORN
Learn more with the Perioperative Nursing Data Set publication, available through the AORN Perioperative Bookstore. The book introduces the perioperative nursing vocabulary, describes the origins of the language and conceptual model, and offers a user's guide to implementation including care plans, educational plans, competencies, critical pathways, and performance appraisals.
AORN also offers the PNDS @ Work series which provides practical ways the PNDS can be applied to daily perioperative practice.
For PNDS questions, call 800-755-2676, Ext. 392, or send an e-mail to pnds@aorn.org.