Nurses are one of those professionals who are greatly respected because of their compassion in doing their jobs and taking care of other people. Not to mention that they do not even have any close relation to their different patients daily. They are the people who work in a hospital and are always on duty to care for their patients. They provide them with the best possible care and comfort. In a hospital, the ratio of nurses to patients is insignificant. However, the workload of a nurse increases when the hospital has more patients. Nurses plan their care for the patient in an action plan where interventions can be seen and should rule out. These interventions may help a sick individual to fully regain their energy and go back to their assumptive roles in society. The interventions written in an action plan do not only cover sick patients but also those who are healthy.

5+ Sample Nursing Action Plan

What Is a Nursing Action Plan?

As part of a patient’s annual health check, they will be required to have a health action plan. This plan will identify the patient’s needs and goals and will be reviewed when appropriate. The health action plan is the main action point that is agreed with the patient and other relevant parties during a health check. It should also contain any other relevant information that the patient needs to know. It is a plan that includes a variety of activities designed to improve the patient’s health. Some of these may include managing pain, monitoring weight, or engaging in other health promotion activities. Furthermore, a nursing action plan is a formal process that involves identifying the various needs and risks of nursing home and long-term care patients. It is a vital component of a healthcare team’s effort to deliver high-quality care. The planning process for nursing care involves continuous updates and feedback as needed. It is designed to ensure that the client receives the best possible care and support.

With, there are other action plans that are utilized by a healthcare facility. Some of which include a nursing home action plan in which consists of problems, challenges, and difficulties happening in a nursing home and not in a hospital facility. Furthermore, there are other healthcare action plans that can be used in any healthcare setting such as medical action plans, home care plans, strategic action plans, nurse corrective action plans, and nursing care plans. The last action plan which is a nursing care plan relates to a nursing action plan where the nursing process is utilized from the assessment of the patient, nursing diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation. This process can be a great help in giving quality and effective care to your patients, not just those who are sick but also in making healthy patients see a different perspective in caring for their bodies.

What Are the Objectives of a Nursing Action Plan?

In creating a nursing action plan, there is a set of goals or objectives that needs to be accomplished or utilized. The planning process for nursing care involves continuous updates and feedback as needed. It is designed to ensure that the client receives the best possible care and support. Support evidence-based nursing care and provide a pleasant environment for patients. Moreover, a care pathway is a process where a team of experts works together to develop an expected outcome for a specific patient. Care bundles are related to the best practice for a specific disease.

What Are the Purposes of a Nursing Action Plan?

1. The Nurse’s Role

Defining the nurse’s role explores the unique role of nurses in providing overall health and well-being services to clients.

2. Clear Direction for Individualized Care of the Client

Providing direct care for a client allows the nurse to anticipate precariously about each customer and to evolve the act of intervening that exists the shortest route tailor-made to the individual. With this, it can proceed to a transparent understanding of the care you encumber the customer.

3. Continuity of Care

Nurses from various shifts or various floors can use the data to show the alike quality and type of the act of intervening to take care of the customer, therefore admit the customer to receive ultimate benefit from medical care. An example of giving the same care is when a nurse endorses the management and care plan of the clients to the next duty nurse. In some way, the care that has been given can continuously adhere to the client.

4. Documentation

Documenting all necessary information and data is an essential part of the action plan. It is said that if you do not document the interventions given to the client, that specific intervention has not been given and it may affect the quality of care rendered to the patient. Let us say, for example, you forgot to document the necessary information about the time that the patient received his or her medicine, there is a tendency that if you do not jot it down to the medical record, the patient will overdose since the next duty nurse will assume that the patient did not yet take the medicine. It should correctly bear the outline of which notes to form, what nursing conduct to complete the activity, and what instructions the customer or kin members demand. If gaining nourishment is not recorded right in the care plan, the skill does not exist and no evidence the care was determined.

5. Delegation

There are instances that a nursing action plan serves as a guide for assigning a specific staff with particular and precise skills to a specific client. Moreover, one skill that all nurses need to develop is that of delegation. Delegation is simply defined as giving authority to a specific person for a specific task. Let’s say, for example, you are a licensed nurse, now you are delegating tasks/ duties to unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) such as nursing assistants or nurse technicians. These people are still your ultimate responsibility for the quality of patient care that they give to the patients. The delegation also involves a problem-solving process in which decisions about how and when to delegate duties are complex and involve critical thinking skills. The process of delegating encompasses the critical thinking process or much like the nursing process where assessment report, planning, delegation, supervision, and evaluation are considered.

6. Guide for Reimbursement

A nursing action plan can also serve as a guide for reimbursement. It can be used as a medical record for insurance companies to determine the necessary bills and payments that they need to pay related to the hospital care given to the client.

7. Client’s Goals

It defines the client’s goals in which it can benefit not only the nurse but also the clients. It gives them a clear understanding of how they should keep their lifestyle active and that they are able to compensate for the changes brought by the illness. They can also manipulate their own treatment and care once they have established a clear and concise comprehension of their own body and life, and only if they are an outpatient.

Elements of a Nursing Action Plan

As stated in the first few paragraphs above, a nursing action plan comprises the nursing process where assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation are elaborated accurately. Listed below are the elements that are found in a nursing action plan:

Assessment: Once a client pays a visit to a hospital facility or any clinic, the first thing that should be done and should be written in the assessment. Assessment is the first measure and necessary information to create the baseline data of the client. Through this nursing process, you can design a comprehensive care plan that allows you and the client to fully grasp what needs to be done. Client assessment can be related to the following aspects and abilities that a person possesses such as the physical, emotional, sexual, psychosocial, spiritual, cognitive, or even environmental. This part of the action plan can directly be either subjective or objective. All possible cues, signs, and symptoms must accurately be documented to produce a factual and relevant assessment.Nursing Diagnosis: Nursing diagnosis differs from a medical diagnosis in terms of its structure and context. A nursing diagnosis is formulated based on the assessment such as the cues or the signs and symptoms followed by the etiology or the actual cause of the problem. On the other hand, a medical diagnosis is formulated and transcribed by a doctor in which he or she directly says the name of the disease. Nursing diagnosis is vital in the action plan since this can either be accepted or denied by the patient. Yet, one of the nurses’ duties and responsibilities is to render effective care to the patient by letting them understand the diagnosis carefully and all possible management to treat such illness or disease and not just merely scaring them.Planning: After doing and collecting the necessary inputs for the assessment to make a comprehensive diagnosis, planning is done afterward. Planning a care plan for the client is vital for them to get well. All expected client outcomes are outlined in this area and these may be in the long term or short term. This really depends on the kind of disease that the patient is having and on how long the disease will take place, it can be acute which only lasts for few weeks, or it can be chronic which lasts for months or for a long period of time.Intervention: Interventions may vary depending on the disease of the patient. Interventions may be done independently, dependently meaning the client is assisted in doing a certain intervention, or the intervention can be done in a collaborative manner. Interventions that are collaborative mean that other than the nurse’s help and care, different healthcare giver are also obliged to help in optimizing the health status of the client. There are different interventions that may be utilized from one disease or the other. An example of an intervention that can also be used for another disease is the monitoring of vital signs. Vital signs are on the crucial results and data that need to be monitored. A downfall or decrease of vital signs would mean that the patient may be experiencing an unforeseeable crisis and needs to be addressed directly by the healthcare practitioners like the nurses and doctors. Along with the interventions that are documented in the action plan is also the rationale behind each intervention given to be evidence-based care. You do not give any interventions without knowing the reason behind them and why you should give them to the patient.Evaluation: The evaluation in the action plan serves as the outcome of the nursing interventions. In this area, it can be noted that the patient has received and understood the intervention correctly in a way that when he or she is being asked she can give an answer for it. This will prove that the nursing action plan is effective and efficient.

How To Write a Nursing Action Plan

In writing a nursing action plan, there are a few key points that are needed to be considered. Listed below are the steps on how to write a nursing action plan:

1. Data Collection

Creating a client database utilizing assessment procedures and data collection methods is the first stage in designing a nursing care plan (physical assessment, health history, interview, medical records review, diagnostic studies). All the health data gathered is stored in a client database. The nurse can use this stage to identify relevant or risk variables as well as defining features that can be used.

2. Data Analysis

After collecting the necessary data available, organizing, and analyzing the data is vital to formulate the nursing diagnosis, nursing priorities, interventions as well as the desired nursing outcomes.

3. Formulating the Nursing Diagnosis

Nursing diagnoses are a standardized method of recognizing, focusing on, and responding to specific client requirements and responses to real or high-risk situations. Nursing diagnoses are actual or potential health concerns that can be prevented or treated by autonomous nursing intervention.

4. Setting priorities

The process of determining a preferred sequence for addressing nursing diagnoses and interventions is known as prioritization. The nurse and the client start planning which nursing diagnostic needs to be addressed first in this step. Diagnoses are categorized into three categories: high, medium, and low priority. Problems that are life-threatening should be given priority. When assigning priorities, the nurse must evaluate the client’s health values and beliefs, as well as the client’s own priorities, available resources, and urgency. To improve cooperation, involve the client in the process.

5. Establishing Client Goals and Desired Outcomes

The nurse and the client develop goals for each determined priority after allocating priorities for your nursing diagnostic. Goals or intended outcomes are derived from the client’s nursing diagnoses and reflect what the nurse expects to achieve by performing nursing interventions. Goals give guidance for intervention planning, serve as criteria for evaluating client development, allow the client and nurse to evaluate which problems have been resolved, and assist inspire the client and nurse by giving them a sense of accomplishment.

6. Intervention With Rationale and Evaluation

Intervention as discussed earlier may differ based on the patient’s disease. Interventions can be carried out individually, dependently (meaning the client is aided in carrying out a specific intervention), or collaboratively. On the other hand, evaluation is perceived as the outcome of the intervention given to the client.

Creating a nursing action plan utilizes the nursing process where it encompasses a wide variety of nursing interventions that are appropriate for a client. Nursing care for groups of clients with common requirements is specified in standardized care plans. Individualized care plans are created to fulfill a client’s special demands, as well as needs that are not met by a typical care plan.

FAQs

Why Is it Important to Update Your Action Plan?

Updating your action plan not only keeps you on track with your goals but also allows you to see how far you’ve progressed. You must update your action plan after each milestone or achievement toward which you have made progress.

What Should Be Included in a Clinical Practice Action Plan?

In clinical practice, the action plan should still have the nursing process indicated in it. Following the nursing process can lead to comprehensive, effective, efficient, and quality care that is appropriate for various clients.

What Is Reflection and Action Plan in Nursing Practice?

Reflection is an important element of a practitioner’s work since it encourages them to enhance their skills and learn how to deal with challenging situations.

Nursing action plans are relevant especially with the crisis and circumstance that we are currently facing. A step-by-step strategy to appropriately completing the sections of a nursing action plan is required when writing the finest nursing care plan. There is a lot of nursing action plan formats or templates that can be utilized and comprehended. You may find them through the internet or best if you use an evidence-based nursing action plan through nursing books or nursing articles. They provide a quality nursing action plan that may help you understand the needs of your patient and effectively render care in all settings.