In the area of nursing, national and international clinical databases are practically non-existing, The lack of common nomenclatures and classifications is the main reason for this unsound situation, in nursing as in many other areas. Additionally, the limited use of clinical nursing record systems by nurses in their daily work makes the provision of structured and standardised nursing data almost impossible. Consequently, the definition of a commonly approved set of indicators on nursing activities has not yet been formulated. However, the TELENURSE project will address the need for structured information about clinical nursing practice, and it will among others develop a clinical nursing database in which to store the clinical data collected from operational nursing record systems. The ideas and concepts behind the design of the clinical nursing database are the subject of this article.