The Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System is a standardized, coded nursing terminology that identifies the discrete elements of nursing practice. The CCC provides a unique framework and coding structure. Used for documenting the plan of care; following the nursing process in all health care settings. [1]
The Clinical Care Classification (CCC), previously the Home Health Care Classification (HHCC), was originally created to document nursing care in home health and ambulatory care settings. [2] Specifically designed for clinical information systems, the CCC facilitates nursing documentation at the point-of-care. The CCC was developed empirically through the examination of approximately 40,000 textual phrases representing nursing diagnoses/patient problems, and 72,000 phrases depicting patient care services and/or actions. The use of the CCC has expanded into other settings, and it is claimed to be appropriate for multidisciplinary documentation. [3]
The CCC, capturing the essence of patient care, consists of two interrelated terminologies – the CCC of Nursing Diagnoses & Outcomes and the CCC of Nursing Interventions & and Actions – classified by 21 Care Components that link the two together. This merge enables a roadmap to other health-related classification systems.
The Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System is an American Nurses Association (ANA)-recognized comprehensive, coded, nursing terminology standard. [4] In 2007, the CCC was accepted by the Department of Health and Human Services [5] as the first national nursing terminology. [6] [7] The computable structure of the CCC System allows nurses, allied health professionals, and researchers to determine; care needs (resources), workload (productivity), and outcomes (quality).
In 1988 to 1990, Harriet Werley established the Nursing Minimum Data Set, which consisted of 12 variables: 8 variables focused on patient demographics and the remaining 4 focused on nursing practice. These were (a) nursing diagnoses, (b) nursing interventions, (c) nursing outcomes, and (d) nursing intensity. The Nursing Minimum Data Set became the basis for the nursing classification standards recognized by the ANA. [8] In 1990, the CCAIN was renamed the Database Steering Committee.
In 1991, the Database Steering Committee submitted to the Congress on Nursing Practice a resolution that NI be adopted as a new nursing specialty. This submission which was accepted, leading to the development of the Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice [9] and the certification of NI specialists. In 1992, the Database Steering Committee developed the criteria, recognizing the first 4 of 12 nursing classifications/terminologies. One being the CCC System. Previously known as the Home Health Care Classification System, as nursing standards for the documentation of nursing practice using computer technology systems. [10] The ANA subsequently submitted the four of six classifications/terminologies to the National Library of Medicine for input into its developing Unified Medical Language System's (UMLS) Metathesaurus.
In 2006, President George W. Bush issued an Executive Order (No. 13410) that every person in the country should have an EHR by 2014. In 2007/2008, the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel selected and recommended the Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System as the first national nursing terminology inter operable for the exchange of information among HIT systems. The CCC System was one of the standards in the first set of 55 national standards approved for use in the EHR, by the Department of Health and Human Services (AHIC, 2006) and the only national nursing terminology standard.
In 2020, HCA Healthcare became the new custodian of Dr. Virginia Saba's Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System.
The CCC Model depicts the documentation of patient care by nurses and allied health providers in any health care setting as an interactive, interrelated, and continuous feedback process. The CCC Model illustrates the relationship between the CCC of Nursing Diagnoses and Outcomes and the CCC of Nursing Interventions and Actions. The arrows are bi-directional indicating the continual flow and feedback among the three major concepts:
The CCC System consists of discrete atomic-level data elements that encompasses nursing diagnoses, interventions, and outcomes. The CCC is a nursing terminology specifically developed for computerization: e.g. electronic healthcare information systems (EHR), computer-based patient records (CPR), and Clinical Information Systems (CIS), from research which collected live patient care data. The CCC System describes the six steps of the nursing process:
The nursing process is the standard of professional nursing practice recognized by the ANA for clinical decision making in a coded, standardized framework. The CCC supports the exchange of nursing information and makes available for data retrieval and analysis in the electronic health record and health information record systems databases specifically linking nursing diagnoses to nursing interventions to nursing outcomes.
The Clinical Care Classification System was developed from a research study conducted by Dr. Virginia K. Saba and a research team through a contract with the Health Care Financing Agency (HCFA), [24] currently known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The objective was to develop a computerized method for assessing and classifying patients for the prediction of nursing resources needs and for evaluating the outcomes of care. "To accomplish this goal, data on actual resource use, that could objectively be measured, was collected and used to predict resource requirements" (Saba, 1995). [25] The CCC System was developed from retrospective research data from 8,967 patient records from a sample of 800 organizations randomly stratified by staff size, type of ownership, and geographic location. [26] The methodology was applied to a national sample of home health agencies that provided all services and products (Spradley & Dorsey, 1985). [27] Dr. Saba and the research team analyzed and coded the research from 10,000 patient records from which the team obtained more than 70,000 statements focusing on nursing interventions and actions provided to patients. Also used were 40,000 diagnostic conditions and problems describing patient care needs. [28]
The CCC System is a standardized framework consisting of four levels designed to allow nursing data to flow upward as well as downward. At the highest level the CCC System Framework consists of four healthcare patterns (Saba, 2007): [29]
Each represents a different set of Care Components. The second level consists of the 21 Care Components which serve to classify the two terminologies and define as a cluster of elements that depict one of four healthcare patterns. The third level consists of:
The fourth level is represented by the expected and actual outcomes 182 diagnoses each with one of three outcomes for Expected Outcome (Saba, 2007, p. 154):
And one of three outcomes for Actual Outcome:
The CCC System uses a five-character structure to code the two terminologies: (1) CCC of Nursing Diagnoses and Outcomes and (2) CCC of Nursing Interventions and Actions. The CCC coding structure is paced on the format of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems: Tenth Revision: Volume 1, WHO, 1992. The coding strategy for each terminology consists of the following (Saba, 2007): [30] The graphic shows examples of the coding structure for a CCC diagnosis code and a CCC intervention code.
The significance of the CCC is a nursing terminology that completes the missing link needed to address nursing contribution to healthcare quality. Nursing care may be the most critical factor in a patient's treatment and recovery. [31] The partnership of nursing and technology is vital for designing nursing practice environments. [32]
The benefit of the CCC is the ability to represent the essence of nursing care in health information systems and applications during any patient care, transfer or transition. The CCC supports the mandate of accrediting organizations to reconcile patient-centered information (The Joint Commission, 2011) and supports the informational exchange and data integrity requirements of CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for meaningful use when patient data is exchanged by using the Nurse Process recognized for professional nursing.
The computable structure of the Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System in the public domain (copyright permission) promotes the system upgrades of existing electronic healthcare information systems. The system architecture of the CCC offers a return on investment with discrete atomic-level data to describe the impact of nursing care on care quality, productivity (workload), resources (staffing), and outcomes management. [33]
Nursing Practice Applications: [34]
Nursing Education Applications:
Nursing Research Applications:
Nursing Administration Applications:
Health informatics is the study and implementation of computer structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding, and management of medical information. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science.
A nursing diagnosis may be part of the nursing process and is a clinical judgment about individual, family, or community experiences/responses to actual or potential health problems/life processes. Nursing diagnoses foster the nurse's independent practice compared to dependent interventions driven by physician's orders. Nursing diagnoses are developed based on data obtained during the nursing assessment. A problem-based nursing diagnosis presents a problem response present at time of assessment. Risk diagnoses represent vulnerabilities to potential problems, and health promotion diagnoses identify areas which can be enhanced to improve health. Whereas a medical diagnosis identifies a disorder, a nursing diagnosis identifies the unique ways in which individuals respond to health or life processes or crises. The nursing diagnostic process is unique among others. A nursing diagnosis integrates patient involvement, when possible, throughout the process. NANDA International (NANDA-I) is body of professionals that develops, researches and refines an official taxonomy of nursing diagnosis.
A medical classification is used to transform descriptions of medical diagnoses or procedures into standardized statistical code in a process known as clinical coding. Diagnosis classifications list diagnosis codes, which are used to track diseases and other health conditions, inclusive of chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and heart disease, and infectious diseases such as norovirus, the flu, and athlete's foot. Procedure classifications list procedure code, which are used to capture interventional data. These diagnosis and procedure codes are used by health care providers, government health programs, private health insurance companies, workers' compensation carriers, software developers, and others for a variety of applications in medicine, public health and medical informatics, including:
The nursing process is a modified scientific method which is a fundamental part of nursing practices in many countries around the world. Nursing practise was first described as a four-stage nursing process by Ida Jean Orlando in 1958. It should not be confused with nursing theories or health informatics. The diagnosis phase was added later.
Computerized physician order entry (CPOE), sometimes referred to as computerized provider order entry or computerized provider order management (CPOM), is a process of electronic entry of medical practitioner instructions for the treatment of patients under his or her care.
A nursing care plan provides direction on the type of nursing care the individual/family/community may need. The main focus of a nursing care plan is to facilitate standardised, evidence-based and holistic care. Nursing care plans have been used for quite a number of years for human purposes and are now also getting used in the veterinary profession. A care plan includes the following components: assessment, diagnosis, expected outcomes, interventions, rationale and evaluation.
In health care, diagnosis codes are used as a tool to group and identify diseases, disorders, symptoms, poisonings, adverse effects of drugs and chemicals, injuries and other reasons for patient encounters. Diagnostic coding is the translation of written descriptions of diseases, illnesses and injuries into codes from a particular classification. In medical classification, diagnosis codes are used as part of the clinical coding process alongside intervention codes. Both diagnosis and intervention codes are assigned by a health professional trained in medical classification such as a clinical coder or Health Information Manager.
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) is a database and universal standard for identifying medical laboratory observations. First developed in 1994, it was created and is maintained by the Regenstrief Institute, a US nonprofit medical research organization. LOINC was created in response to the demand for an electronic clinical care and management database and is publicly available at no cost.
SNOMED CT or SNOMED Clinical Terms is a systematically organized computer-processable collection of medical terms providing codes, terms, synonyms and definitions used in clinical documentation and reporting. SNOMED CT is considered to be the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world. The primary purpose of SNOMED CT is to encode the meanings that are used in health information and to support the effective clinical recording of data with the aim of improving patient care. SNOMED CT provides the core general terminology for electronic health records. SNOMED CT comprehensive coverage includes: clinical findings, symptoms, diagnoses, procedures, body structures, organisms and other etiologies, substances, pharmaceuticals, devices and specimens.
Health information management (HIM) is information management applied to health and health care. It is the practice of analyzing and protecting digital and traditional medical information vital to providing quality patient care. With the widespread computerization of health records, traditional (paper-based) records are being replaced with electronic health records (EHRs). The tools of health informatics and health information technology are continually improving to bring greater efficiency to information management in the health care sector.
Medcin, is a system of standardized medical terminology, a proprietary medical vocabulary and was developed by Medicomp Systems, Inc. MEDCIN is a point-of-care terminology, intended for use in Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, and it includes over 280,000 clinical data elements encompassing symptoms, history, physical examination, tests, diagnoses and therapy. This clinical vocabulary contains over 38 years of research and development as well as the capability to cross map to leading codification systems such as SNOMED CT, CPT, ICD-9-CM/ICD-10-CM, DSM, LOINC, CDT, CVX, and the Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System for nursing and allied health.
The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) is a care classification system which describes the activities that nurses perform as a part of the planning phase of the nursing process associated with the creation of a nursing care plan.
Health information technology (HIT) is health technology, particularly information technology, applied to health and health care. It supports health information management across computerized systems and the secure exchange of health information between consumers, providers, payers, and quality monitors. Based on a 2008 report on a small series of studies conducted at four sites that provide ambulatory care – three U.S. medical centers and one in the Netherlands, the use of electronic health records (EHRs) was viewed as the most promising tool for improving the overall quality, safety and efficiency of the health delivery system.
The Omaha System is a standardized health care terminology consisting of an assessment component, a care plan/services component, and an evaluation component. Approximately 22,000 health care practitioners, educators, and researchers use Omaha System to improve clinical practice, structure documentation, and analyze secondary data. Omaha System users from Canada, China, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Turkey, the United States, and Wales, have presented at Omaha System International Conferences.
Clinical point of care (POC) is the point in time when clinicians deliver healthcare products and services to patients at the time of care.
Clinical documentation improvement (CDI), also known as "clinical documentation integrity", is the best practices, processes, technology, people, and joint effort between providers and billers that advocates the completeness, precision, and validity of provider documentation inherent to transaction code sets sanctioned by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in the United States.
Nursing documentation is the record of nursing care that is planned and delivered to individual clients by qualified nurses or other caregivers under the direction of a qualified nurse. It contains information in accordance with the steps of the nursing process. Nursing documentation is the principal clinical information source to meet legal and professional requirements, care nurses' knowledge of nursing documentation, and is one of the most significant components in nursing care. Quality nursing documentation plays a vital role in the delivery of quality nursing care services through supporting better communication between different care team members to facilitate continuity of care and safety of the clients.
Mental health informatics is a branch of health or clinical informatics focused on the use of information technology (IT) and information to improve mental health. Like health informatics, mental health informatics is a multidisciplinary field that promotes care delivery, research and education as well as the technology and methodologies required to implement it.
A nurse scientist is a registered nurse with advanced education and expertise in nursing research. These professionals play a critical role in advancing nursing knowledge, improving patient care, and shaping the future of the nursing profession. Highly educated and specialized, nurse scientists conduct research to generate new knowledge about nursing care, employing a deep understanding of nursing theory, research methodologies, and clinical practice. Nurse scientists are essential contributors to the development of new nursing interventions and practices. Their skills extend beyond academic settings and these advanced nurses work in hospitals, research institutes, and community organizations. Through their efforts, nurse scientists have a profound impact on the quality of healthcare, contributing significantly to the improvement of patient care and the overall advancement of the nursing profession. They possess advanced qualifications, typically holding a Ph.D. in nursing or a related field, demonstrating expertise not only in research principles and methodology but also in-depth content knowledge within a specific clinical area. The primary focus of the role is to provide leadership in the development, coordination and management of clinical research studies; provide mentorship for nurses in research; lead evaluation activities that improve outcomes for patients participating in research studies; contribute to the overall health sciences literature. Nurse scientists have been regarded as knowledge brokers. They participate in nursing research.
Judith J. Warren is an American nurse, educator, and researcher, known for being a pioneer in the field of nursing informatics. Her work has focused on integrating nursing science, information technology, and patient care. She holds the title of professor emerita at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.
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