1.2: The Nursing Process

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Have you ever wondered how a nurse can receive a quick handoff report from another nurse and immediately begin providing care for a patient they previously knew nothing about? How do they know what to do? How do they prioritize and make a plan?

Nurses do this activity every shift. They know how to find pertinent information and use the nursing process as a critical thinking model to guide patient care. The nursing process becomes a road map for the actions and interventions that nurses implement to optimize their patients’ well-being and health. This section will explain how to use the nursing process as standards of professional nursing practice to provide safe, patient-centered care.

Introduction to the Nursing Process

Before discussing the components of a nursing health assessment, it is important to understand how assessment fits under the standards for professional nursing practice established by the American Nurses Association (ANA). These standards are the foundation of the nursing profession and include duties that all registered nurses, regardless of role or specialty, are expected to perform competently.^{^[2]} There are six components of the nursing process: Assessment, Diagnosis, Outcomes Identification, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation. See Figure 1.2.1^{^[3]} for an illustration of the nursing process. The nursing process is a continuous, cyclic process that is constantly adapting to the patient’s current health status. This textbook contains several chapters pertaining to techniques used during the assessment phase of the nursing process.

Figure 1.2.1

Figure 1.2.1 The Nursing Process