We Are Often Asked How We Came To Write The Care Plan Books. In The Late 1970s, We Were Involved With Some Publishing Efforts That Did Not Come To Fruition. In This Work We Had Included Care Plans, So Ensuing Discussions Revolved Around The Need For A Care Plan Book. We Spent A Year Struggling To Write Care Plans Before We Realized Our Major Difficulty Was The Lack Of Standardized Labels For Client Problems. At That Time, We Were Given A List Of Nursing Diagnoses From The Clearinghouse For Nursing Diagnosis, Which Became The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) And Is Now NANDA International (NANDA-I). This Work Answered Our Need By Providing Concise Titles That Could Be Used In Various Plans Of Care And Followed Across The Spectrum Of Client Care. We Believed These Nursing Diagnosis Labels Would Both Define And Focus Nursing Care.