Geneva, Switzerland, 18 June 2014 – For the past 25 years, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) has led the development of an international standard for the description and comparison of nursing practice locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) Programme today celebrates 25 years since its inception at the 1989 ICN Congress in Seoul, Korea. 

The 1989 ICN Council of Nurse Representatives considered and passed a resolution recognising that the inability to name the phenomena with which nursing was concerned was preventing proper recognition of nursing’s distinctive contribution to health and health care. In 1996, with the release of ICNP alpha version, Dr Margretta Madden Styles, ICN President, noted that the ICNP “will be as a living organism, always changing as nursing’s role, science and practice evolve.” With thanks to a very dedicated group of nurses, and internal and external funding, ICNP development continued and ICNP beta2 was released in 2001. With the release of ICNP 1.0 in 2005 at the ICN Congress in Taipei, Taiwan, the terminology was given a more formal foundation (using the Web Ontology Language). 

ICNP is now released biennially in conjunction with the ICN Congress/Conference. ICN is the international voice for nursing; the ICNP terminology provides nurses around the world with the means to describe their practice, in order to optimize quality and care outcomes worldwide. ICNP provides nurses with content for paper and electronic health records (EHRs). The ICNP Programme articulates with other terminology initiatives. ICNP is a related terminology in the WHO Family of International Classifications. And a major project to harmonize ICNP with SNOMED-CT is bringing nursing content to SNOMED-CT users worldwide. 

ICN CEO David Benton strongly advocates for the importance of nursing representation in health care documentation. “With its ability to describe the work of nursing within a broader multi-disciplinary context, ICNP supports ICN’s leading role in eHealth, mHealth and telehealth - modalities that are driving positive changes in health care and nursing practice.” 

The ICNP 25th anniversary will be celebrated at the biennial Nursing Informatics 2014 conference in Taipei Taiwan in June. This conference brings hundreds of nurses involved with informatics and telehealth nursing for education and research dissemination. 

Note for Editors 

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of more than 130 national nurses associations representing the millions of nurses worldwide. Operated by nurses and leading nursing internationally, ICN works to ensure quality care for all and sound health policies globally. 

For further information contact Lindsey Williamson at: [email protected] 

Tel: +41 22 908 0100; Fax: +41 22 908 0101, www.icn.ch