Abstract

In a healthcare environment shaped by persistent financial pressures, the need for quality data has never been more apparent. More and more databases are being established to provide the information required for decision-making; increasingly, they are being used to inform decisions regarding the funding of services and health human resources. Nevertheless, nurses throughout the world experience "powerlessness" (Clark and Lang 1992) due to the invisibility of nursing in information systems and the fact that decisions regarding staffing relative to patient needs are not based on data.