An overview and policy implications of national nurse identifier systems: A call for unity and integration

Authors

Garrett K. Chan, Associate Adjunct Professor, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, President & CEO, HealthImpact, San Francisco, CA. Electronic address: garrett.chan@ucsf.edu.
Mollie R. Cummins, Professor, Jon M. Huntsman Presidential Chair, Associate Dean for Research and the PhD Program, College of Nursing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
Cheryl S. Taylor, Associate Professor and Chair of the Graduate School Nursing Program, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA.
Betty Rambur, Professor and Routhier Endowed Chair for Practice, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI.
David I. Auerbach, External Adjunct Faculty, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT.
Mikki Meadows-Oliver, Clinical Professor, NYU, New York, NY.
Cindy Cooke, Adjunct Faculty, University of Mary, Bismark, ND.
Emily A. Turek, Government Affairs and Policy Coordinator, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Washington, DC.
Patricia Polly Pittman, Fitzhugh Mullan Professor and Director, Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-12-2023

Journal

Nursing outlook

DOI

10.1016/j.outlook.2022.10.005

Keywords

Ethics; National council of state boards of nursing identifier; National provider identifier; Nurse identifier; Nursing workforce

Abstract

There is a clear and growing need to be able record and track the contributions of individual registered nurses (RNs) to patient care and patient care outcomes in the US and also understand the state of the nursing workforce. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity (2021), identified the need to track nurses' collective and individual contributions to patient care outcomes. This capability depends upon the adoption of a unique nurse identifier and its implementation within electronic health records. Additionally, there is a need to understand the nature and characteristics of the overall nursing workforce including supply and demand, turnover, attrition, credentialing, and geographic areas of practice. This need for data to support workforce studies and planning is dependent upon comprehensive databases describing the nursing workforce, with unique nurse identification to support linkage across data sources. There are two existing national nurse identifiers- the National Provider Identifier and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Identifier. This article provides an overview of these two national nurse identifiers; reviews three databases that are not nurse specific to understand lessons learned in the development of those databases; and discusses the ethical, legal, social, diversity, equity, and inclusion implications of a unique nurse identifier.

APA Citation

Chan, Garrett K.; Cummins, Mollie R.; Taylor, Cheryl S.; Rambur, Betty; Auerbach, David I.; Meadows-Oliver, Mikki; Cooke, Cindy; Turek, Emily A.; and Pittman, Patricia Polly, "An overview and policy implications of national nurse identifier systems: A call for unity and integration" (2023). GW Authored Works. Paper 2275.
https://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/gwhpubs/2275

Department

Health Policy and Management