As the NKBDS Initiative advances into its second decade, the 2025–2026 workgroup action plans As the NKBDS Initiative advances into its second decade, the 2025–2026 workgroup action plans reflect a deepening of purpose, growing cross-workgroup collaboration, and a shared commitment to shaping the future of nursing through informatics. Many workgroups are building on multi-year momentum, while others are launching strategic new efforts aligned with NKBDS goals such as nursing knowledge visibility, documentation transformation, health equity, and responsible AI adoption. Whether by mapping standardized nursing terms, collaborating with nurse leaders/nursing health system executives/academic deans, or advocating for the integration of the Unique Nurse Identifier, each workgroup contributes to advancing sharable, comparable, and actionable nursing data that supports patients, families, communities, and populations. Following, we describe each 2025-2026 workgroup action plan:
Data Science & Clinical Analytics
The Data Science & Clinical Analytics workgroup enters the new year with a balanced focus on hands-on learning and professional development. Building on successful engagement with the All of Us Research Program, the group will reproduce a published study examining the impact of metformin on long COVID, while also launching a collaborative project with the Determinants of Health workgroup to explore how social drivers of health shape clinical outcomes. In parallel, the team is deepening its data literacy agenda through a new set of “microlearning” modules aimed at nurse informaticists. These modules will introduce practical strategies to critique predictive models and help learners understand why data literacy matters in their daily work. The group is also considering a micro-credentialing pathway for nurses completing this content. The popular Data Science Journal Club will continue with a featured session on ambient AI in September 2025, advancing the workgroup’s goal of building a data-savvy nursing workforce.
Determinants of Health
The Determinants of Health workgroup will advance a pragmatic and policy-relevant agenda. Drawing on recent discussions about the group’s evolving mission and the complexity of social risk data, the team will update two key resources: NCQA’s Social Determinants of Health Resource Guide and SIREN’s Community Resource Referral Platforms. They will also explore new publication opportunities, including op-eds that frame the importance of determinants/drivers of health in driving diagnosis and referral practices. Collaboration with other groups, particularly Data Science & Clinical Analytics, Nursing Value, and Policy and Advocacy, will ensure alignment on shared goals and reinforce the central role of DOH data in nursing education, policy, and practice. The group remains committed to promoting health equity through informatics-based approaches that center individual and community needs.
Digital Health and Innovation
With a focus on clarifying core concepts and advancing adoption, the Digital Health and Innovation workgroup is developing tools to support nurses and organizations at every stage of the digital transformation journey. This year’s work includes crafting a working definition of digital health innovation, designing a model of technology adoption by nurses, and producing a visually compelling infographic that maps the digital therapeutic landscape and nursing’s role within it. These resources will help demystify digital innovation, clarify return on investment, and provide concrete strategies to improve nurse satisfaction with new tools. Ultimately, the group aims to foster widespread engagement with digital health across the care continuum; thus, enhancing clinical decision-making, promoting safety, and elevating the nursing experience.
Knowledge Modeling and Encoding
The Knowledge Modeling and Encoding workgroup continues its essential work at the intersection of standards, interoperability, and nursing-specific content. Two high-priority projects are underway: completing the Pain Knowledge Model assessment and updating the LOINC® Pain Assessment Panel. The group is also beginning analysis of the Head-to-Toe (H2T) assessment model, developed in partnership with the Transforming Documentation workgroup, and aligning related content with the Gravity Project. These efforts will support standardized flowsheet mapping and analytics across vendor platforms.
In addition, the team is updating its heuristics documentation to include nursing interventions, developing a value set maintenance plan, and preparing a journal article and international presentation to disseminate this work. As the group explores the use of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to accelerate terminology mapping, it remains committed to building replicable, standards-based frameworks that enable semantic interoperability and empower nursing-driven data insights.
Learning Collaborative for Digital Health
The Learning Collaborative for Digital Health workgroup is translating years of foundational work into actionable tools that support educators and nurse leaders in both academic and practice settings. This year, the group will develop a toolkit and curated resource library based on findings from a scoping review and faculty self-assessment. These efforts are aimed at identifying and filling gaps in how nurses are taught to use informatics and technology in practice. By promoting best practices for evaluating digital competency and strengthening faculty capacity, the workgroup’s activities directly support the mission of preparing future-ready nurses and improving care outcomes at scale.
Nursing Value
The Nursing Value workgroup will continue advancing measurable, data-driven approaches to articulating the value nurses bring to patients, systems, and the profession itself. This year, the group will examine user stories related to pain, stroke, and falls using Graph Builder 2 and Epic’s Cosmos to explore gaps and opportunities in documenting nursing contributions. They also plan to revisit and compare existing value models developed by the workgroup, to identify common constructs that may inform future frameworks. These efforts aim to refine how nursing value is captured in the electronic health record and promote the visibility of nurses’ impact on health outcomes, economic metrics, and team-based care. The workgroup will also pursue collaborative writing and publishing opportunities to disseminate insights to broader audiences.
Policy and Advocacy
The Policy and Advocacy workgroup is broadening and deepening its influence across three major focus areas: the Unique Nurse Identifier (UNI), collaborating with the Transforming Documentation workgroup, and the CONCERN early warning system. Beyond advancing policy statements, the workgroup is developing educational resources, toolkits, and stakeholder engagement strategies to support implementation and alignment across healthcare and academic systems.
New efforts include a roadmap for integrating the UNI into pre-licensure nursing programs, with goals for pilot testing in schools and engaging key organizations such as AACN and NLN. Outreach to vendors is also underway to encourage UNI readiness across EHR and educational platforms. By embedding UNI standards into both practice and education, the workgroup seeks to enhance data traceability, improve workforce analytics, and enable nursing-specific insights across care systems. As national conversations around AI, wellbeing, and data equity evolve, the workgroup is positioning nursing knowledge as a critical input to future health innovation.
Transforming Documentation
The Transforming Documentation workgroup is continuing its pivotal work on reducing documentation burden and promoting standards-based, role-specific charting that supports both clinical reasoning and data reusability. Following the release of the Head-to-Toe (H2T) toolkit in June 2025, the workgroup will engage with beta and early adopter sites to gather feedback, refine content, and assess implementation impacts. Expansion into critical care settings is underway, alongside the development of leadership engagement tools such as return of investment templates.
Additionally, the group will explore the implications of AI-enabled documentation technologies, particularly ambient voice recognition, and their effects on nursing workflow, data standardization, and secondary use. Collaboration with the Knowledge Modeling and Encoding and Policy and Advocacy workgroups will support broader dissemination and standardization of tools, ensuring that frontline nurses, executives, and informaticians all benefit from purposeful, patient-centered documentation
Workgroup Impact Focus Across the Care Continuum
The heatmap (Figure 1) below illustrates the projected impact focus of each NKBDS workgroup for 2025–2026, spanning individuals, families, communities, and populations. This visual synthesis highlights how the collective efforts of the NKBDS Initiative are addressing health and care delivery at every level, from personalized interventions and documentation improvements at the bedside, to system-wide data strategies, policy advocacy, and population health analytics. While all workgroups contribute to broad-scale transformation, several maintain distinct emphases that reflect their core missions. For example, the Learning Collaborative for Digital Health workgroup’s strong community and population impact through faculty development, or Nursing Value workgroup’s work to articulate and elevate individual nurse contributions within complex systems. Together, these efforts demonstrate the initiative’s comprehensive approach to advancing nursing knowledge and shaping a data-driven, person-centered future of care.
Figure 1. Projected impact focus of NKBDS workgroups for 2025–2026 across individuals, families, communities, and populations.
Workgroup Action Plans Alignment with the NKBDS Strategic Plan
Workgroup Action Plans Alignment with the NKBDS Strategic Plan
Workgroup action plans for 2025–2026 demonstrate clear alignment with the NKBDS Strategic Plan, advancing key priorities such as sharable and comparable nursing data, interoperable documentation, workforce support, and the responsible integration of emerging technologies. Many workgroups are operationalizing national standards like SNOMED CT, LOINC®, and FHIR to ensure semantic clarity and consistent data exchange. Others are creating frameworks that support the adoption of the Unique Nurse Identifier and streamline documentation in ways that improve both nurse satisfaction and data utility. Educational initiatives, ranging from faculty toolkits to microlearning modules, align with the AACN Essentials and promote lifelong informatics capacity. Collectively, these efforts underscore the Initiative’s commitment to a future where nursing knowledge drives health care design, delivery, and policy at every level of the system. Engagement of leaders and members of Workgroups continue to be prioritized in professional organizations such as AACN, NLN, AAN, ANIA, AMIA, AONL, and many others. Publications, presentations, and tool kits continue to be disseminated, and access through the Nursing Big Data Repository.
Conclusion
As the 2025–2026 cycle begins, the NKBDS workgroups reaffirm their role as drivers of innovation, collaboration, and transformation across the nursing and health informatics ecosystem. Their action plans reflect both continuity and evolution, sustaining multi-year projects while initiating new, responsive efforts that address emerging priorities like AI integration, documentation redesign, and social determinants of health. From standards-based mapping of nursing knowledge to the creation of educational resources and the advancement of policy advocacy, each workgroup contributes to the shared mission of making nursing data visible, actionable, and impactful.
Looking forward, the NKBDS Initiative is well-positioned to shape the next generation of nursing informatics through collective leadership and evidence-based strategy. As national conversations around data equity, workforce wellbeing, and digital trust gain momentum, the NKBDS community will continue to push boundaries, ensuring that nurses not only adapt to technological change, but lead it. The growing use of AI and automation tools, for example, stresses the urgent need for role-specific data standards, education tailored to evolving competencies, and interoperable systems that reflect the full scope of nursing care.
Workgroup efforts in the coming year will help build the infrastructure to meet these needs, amplifying nursing’s contribution to learning health systems, strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration, and guiding the ethical use of technology in service of better care. By staying focused on impact, inclusivity, and scalability, the NKBDS Initiative is advancing a more connected, equitable, and knowledge-powered future in nursing and health care.