Background: Despite great difficulties faced in clinical practice Greek nurse educators are striving to improve clinical instrumentation and to promote students nurses’ critical thinking and communication in multidisciplinary practice. Aims: This study reports on an educational clinical practice programme which aimed to promote effective communication in clinical settings using a structured nursing data set. Methods: The project was initially introduced to the second year nursing students at the University of Athens, during the spring semester in 2006. Following the theoretical and workshop preparation the nursing students (N=165) collected data, during their compulsory clinical practice, in the form of field notes from 165 patients. These involved an assessment sheet based on 11 of Gordon’s functional health patterns, a sheet with NANDA nursing diagnoses, translated into Greek and a nursing care framework comprising the phases of the nursing process. Each student monitored his/her own patient for one week, assessing needs, recording nursing diagnoses and outcomes and planning interventions. Moreover they attempted to implement the interventions and evaluate the effectiveness of nursing care. Results: Despite the difficult working nursing conditions in most hospital settings all students were in a position to identify the problematic patterns and to use the NANDA nursing diagnoses. Students themselves reported that they were forced to look beyond the medical diagnosis and were assisted with concrete thinking and relationship building. Moreover they indicated that they were helped to question their assumptions and the implications of the care they provided. The majority was satisfied with this written systematic nursing care and acknowledged the importance of the nursing data set and its practical implication. Conclusions: It is obvious that structured documentation encourages nurses to start thinking critically and to take a different approach in patient care in a country where the nursing process is still not well implemented, mainly due to a huge nursing shortage. However, although most of feedback was positive, with recommendations for their continued use, students did express concerns around how time would be restrictive for implementation in real clinical circumstances.