Nursing is one of the essential aspects of the healthcare sector. The nursing field requires the desire to care for your patients and better understand the established processes to promote optimum care and recovery. As a nurse, your primary responsibility is to make sure that your patients will receive secure delivery of healthcare according to the process of care created by the medical team. Here, the question that arises in an individual’s mind is, “what are the steps of the nursing process.” If you are also wondering about it, then don’t worry. In this blog, you will learn everything about all the important steps in the nursing process.
“Let’s start the discussion with the overview of nursing.”
Overview Of Nursing
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At present, nursing has become one of the best in-demand professions worldwide. The nursing sector focuses on caring for communities, families, and individual patients to attain or maintain good health and better quality of life. At present, it is considered that nursing is like a glue that can hold a patient’s health care journey together. From primary care to the entire patient experience, nurses must work tirelessly to determine and complete the individual’s needs.
The nursing profession offers you a broad scope of career opportunities, from the entry-level apprentice to the doctoral-level researcher. We can say that nurses are essential parts of the healthcare industry. Their main objective is to provide highly personalized and focused care to particular patients.
Introduction To Nursing Process
The nursing process used for nursing that guides nurses regarding the care of patients even today was started by Ida Jean Orlando in 1958. This process is considered a modified scientific method essential for nurses for better care of their patients. The nursing process is also considered a systematic approach to the care of patients by using the basic principles of critical thinking, goal-oriented tasks, client-centered approaches to treatment, EDP (Evidence-based practice) suggestions, etc. In starting the Ida Jean Orlando introduced only four stages for the nursing process. There are mainly five steps in the nursing process. The 2nd step of nursing steps is the “diagnosis phase,” which was added to the nursing process later.
Purpose Of Nursing Process
The purpose of the nursing process is to provide a systematic and comprehensive patient care process based on the best available proof. The nursing process helps ensure patients receive individualized, high-quality care that addresses their specific health needs and goals.
The nursing process has various benefits that are given below:
- Improves patient outcomes: The nursing process improves patient outcomes using a systematic approach to patient care. It helps to ensure that patients receive the right treatments and interventions, which leads to better health outcomes.
- Increases patient satisfaction: The nursing process can increase patient satisfaction with their care by involving them in their care and ensuring their needs are met.
- Enhances critical thinking: The nursing process requires nurses to gather and analyze information, make clinical decisions, and evaluate the effectiveness of their interventions. It helps to enhance their critical thinking skills and improve their ability to provide high-quality care.
- Facilitates collaboration: The nursing process requires cooperation between the nurse and the patient, as well as other members of the health care team. It helps to ensure that all aspects of the patient’s care are addressed and leads to better health outcomes.
- Promotes accountability: The nursing process encourages responsibility and helps to ensure that patients receive the highest quality of care possible.
5 Steps In The Nursing Process
As we already discussed, the nursing process is a scientific method for ensuring a better quality of patient care. The majority of beginners always asked the same question: “what are the steps of the nursing process?” There are 5 steps in the nursing process. Here we are going to discuss every step one by one in detail:-
Assessment Phase
The nursing process’s first and most vital step is “assessment.” In this step, nurses have to gather different information about their patients. Such as physiological, sociological, psychological, and spiritual status. The nurses can utilize various methods for collecting such information or data.
The majority of the nurses prefer to interview a particular patient. Here, the primary purpose is to conduct physical examinations, obtain patients’ family history, reference the health history, and general observation is also helpful in collecting relevant assessment data. It is noteworthy that the patient’s interaction plays a most crucial role in this evaluative phase.
Diagnosing Phase
The 2nd important step of the nursing process is “Diagnosing.” In this phase, the nurses must judge the patient’s actual or potential health problem. Sometimes it is required to make numerous diagnoses for a particular patient. This diagnosis includes a basic description of the problems related to patients, including whether or not any patient has a risk of developing other problems.
The primary purpose of making such a diagnosis is to determine a patient’s readiness for health improvement. It is also helpful for checking whether or not the patient may have developed a syndrome. We can say that diagnosing phase is one of the most critical steps in the nursing process as it is mainly used to define the course of treatment.
Planning Phase
When the patient and nurse agree on the diagnoses, this phase helps the nurses develop an action plan. If numerous diagnoses are required to be addressed, the head nurse must prioritize every assessment and give attention to severe signs and high-risk factors.
Usually, every problem is assigned a straightforward and measurable goal for the expected beneficial outcome. In this step, nurses commonly refer to specific evidence sets of standardized representations and measurements for tracking patient fitness. It is also notable that nursing interventions classification is also a helpful resource for planning.
Implementing Phase
Another one of the essential steps in the nursing process is “Implementing.” In this step, the nurse starts following all the plans to action they decided in the planning phase. Undoubtedly the plan is specifically different from one patient to another. It is also focused on attainable outcomes. Here are some actions involved in the nursing care plan:-
- Instructing and educating the patient regarding their health management.
- Monitoring the patient 24*7 hours to determine the changes or improvement in health.
- Referring or contacting the patient for follow-up.
- Performing the required medical care tasks or presently caring for the patient.
It is considered that the implementation phase can take one hour, day, weeks, or even months. It depends on the condition of your patient.
Evaluation Phase
Once all the nursing intervention actions have taken place, the nurse starts the evaluation process. It is the last and most critical step in the nursing process. The evaluation’s primary purpose is to check whether the goals for the patient’s fitness have been met or not.
Usually, there are three possibilities in the evaluation: the patient’s condition improved, the patient’s condition stabilized, and the patient’s condition deteriorated. Here, if any patient’s condition has shown no improvement and even the fitness goals are not achieved, the entire 5 steps in the nursing process begin again from the very first step.
Nursing Process Examples
Here’s an example of how the nursing process might be applied in a clinical setting:
A patient comes to the emergency room with chest pain.
Final words (Steps In The Nursing Process)
Being a nurse, you should be familiar with all steps in the nursing process. If you are planning on studying nursing to become a nurse, you should prepare yourself to use all these steps in day-to-day life in your new career. We have discussed the 5 Steps In The Nursing Process in detail. Therefore we hope that you will now understand each step clearly. And our blog will become very useful or helpful for every nursing student.
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Frequently Asked Question
What is the goal of the nursing process?
The primary goal of the nursing process is to determine a patient’s fitness and health care status. Another one of the essential purposes of the nursing process is to understand the need of patients and deliver specific nursing interventions to the patients to meet their needs.
What are the 3 parts of a nursing diagnosis?
Here are the three primary parts of a nursing diagnosis:-
1. Patient’s problem and its definition.
2. Determining characteristics or risk factors.
3. Etiology or risk factors.
What Is The Nursing Interventions Classification NIC?
The nursing interventions classification is the foremost complete type of treatment that nurses perform. The NIC is a standardized language of physician-initiated and nurse-initiated nursing treatments.