Introduction: Mental health nurses now work with growing volumes of measures, documentation screens, alerts and automated scores. More information does not always mean better decisions. When key cues are hard to find, nurses may spend more time searching, checking and reconciling, with less time available for judgement, continuity and therapeutic work.
Aim/question: How can digital information be organised so that the most important cues are easier to see and use at the point of care without adding burden?
Method: This structured debates essay draws on literature on sociotechnical safety, measurement-based care, electronic record workload and burnout, and governance for clinical decision support.
Results: A five-gate Cognitive Firewall is proposed to shape what is shown at the point of decision: Relevance, Prioritisation, Trust, Context and Actionability. Together, these gates produce a task-specific Minimum Viable Data decision view. The aim is to reduce low-value noise, searching and verification work while keeping the full record available.
Discussion: Cognitive safety is framed as a practical mental health nursing concern, not only a technical design issue. The framework treats information overload as a safety problem that can be reduced through clear local rules and governance that do not add further burden.
Implications for practice: The framework can support safer, clearer work in triage, handover, discharge and follow-up by making recent change, current risk and next steps easier to see.
Recommendations: Local services should pilot the gate rules in one high-burden workflow, co-design the decision view with frontline nurses and lived-experience perspectives, and evaluate workload, usability and safety before wider adoption.
Keywords: clinical decision support systems; electronic health records; patient safety; professional burnout; psychiatric nursing.
© 2026 The Author(s). Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.