Nurses play a crucial role in healthcare, directly influencing the quality of patient care. Facing a global nursing shortage, there is an urgent need for strategies to enhance nursing efficiency and care quality. This foundational study explores an NLP-based approach to determine NANDA nursing diagnoses, leveraging both subjective and objective patient data recorded by nurses. Employing text data similarity analysis and a prototype predictive model, our research aims to refine the nursing assessment process and pave the way for the potential automation of nursing diagnoses. This work highlights the potential of AI to support nursing practices and sets a platform for future research to fully realize AI’s benefits in addressing the challenges posed by the nursing shortage.