One of the biggest things that makes nursing school hard is how many care plans you need to write. Every week, you’re writing at least one nursing school care plan the entire time you’re a nursing student.
Thankfully, nursing care plans don’t need to be difficult, complicated, or take a gazillion hours.
Here are 4 simple steps to help set you up for nursing care plan success in nursing school! In this video, we’ll cover what you need to do before, during, and after your nursing school clinicals to help you succeed on your care plans.
I’ll also give you 3 bonus tips to help you write a great nursing diagnosis and nursing interventions on your nursing care plans as well.
Plus, don’t forget to snag your FREE nursing school care plans by clicking the button below. For real, you do NOT want to miss out on these. 😉
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:Â Â
In this video I’m going to walk you through a simple, 4 step process to set yourself up for success to acing your nursing school care plans.
And I actually have some [ Slide 1 ] free care plans to give to you, so be sure to stick around until the end of this video and I’ll let you know where you can get those.
Hey friend, I’m Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and today we are talking all about nursing school care plans. Yes, care plans. I know you’re probably shaking in your boots right now, but trust me, they are soooo easy to do once you get them down.
So I’m going to walk you through 4 easy steps to set yourself up to ace them.
So before we dive into the steps we need to first understand exactly what a nursing care plan is.
So a nursing care plan is basically the process a patient will go through to get better, it’s their plan of care, their care plan. And to create these care plans, you, as the nursing student, need to first assess the patient, understand their needs and their goals, and create a plan of action to help them get there. So that’s what we’re doing with these care plans.
Now care plans follow the nursing process, and if you need a refresher on the nursing process, be sure to check out the video we have on that, I’ll put a link down below in the description. So, care plans follow the nursing process, when is assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. So the care plan goes like this: you need to assess you patient to find out their needs, come up with an appropriate nursing diagnosis for them for where they are at currently, set goals for where they want to be, do the interventions necessary to help get them there, and then finally, you’ll need to evaluate their progress.
So that is the overall concept of care plans, now let’s walk through step by step exactly how to make this happen.
So the first step is to plan out exactly what you need before you go to clinical. You have to know what information you need to get from your patient before you go to clinical, that way you don’t forget anything, you don’t forget to ask them any questions or to assess something. So have a plan, you need to know exactly what your professor is expecting from you and your care plan, so you want to go through all of that before you go to clinical. So make a list of all the information you need to get: things like their patient history, how they ended up at the facility, what’s been stressing them out lately, what support system they have, what their normal day looks like, things like that. Your clinical instructor will lay out requirements for you so make sure you know what those are so you don’t forget any of them.
Now step 2 is to actually gather all of that information. You’ll do your full head to toe assessment or a focused assessment, you’ll ask all of your questions, and you’ll write it all down. Now this is SUPER important, you MUST write all of the information down as you get it. Because, let’s be honest, you’re brain is overflowing with all of this nursing school information right? So if you don’t write these things down, you will forget it. So make sure that you write everything down as you are doing your nursing assessment. Now, if it’s your first time doing an assessment, I really recommend that you take full pieces of paper and write as much down word for word as you can. Now, if you have a little more experience with assessments, and you’re more comfortable talking with patients, you can simplify and use a brain sheet or maybe just a half sheet of paper. If you’re not familiar with what a brain sheet is, it’s a handy dandy tool that nurses use to keep track of everything they do. It’s just a sheet of paper with boxes to fill, and organized places to write notes in. So you can use a brain sheet if you’re comfortable with it.
Now step number 3, is to find a quite corner after your assessment to brain dump. Yes, you need to take a few minutes, step back and literally write down everything you can remember about that assessment that you didn’t get to write down in the room. Now this always happens, you go to write your care plan, and realize that you forgot something about your patient or you’re missing a key piece of information. So really, save yourself the stress later, and just take a few moments to write down everything you didn’t have time to write in the room. This shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, and you will thank yourself later.
Now step number 4, is to actually do it. Actually write your care plan. So sit down at home or the library or somewhere quite, look through your notes, and write your care plan. So look through the requirements again, and use your amazing notes that you took at clinical to actually write out your patient profile and do the care plan.
And I have 3 bonus tips to help you do just that:
BONUS TIP number 1: Choose the most appropriate nursing diagnosis for your specific patient. This is what your instructor is looking for, they need to know that you actually know what you’re doing, and to prove that, it starts with choosing the best nursing diagnosis for your specific patient. If you choose a nursing diagnosis that doesn’t apply to your patient, well, that’s just telling your nursing instructor that you don’t know what you’re doing, and friend, I know it feels that way sometimes, but you actually DO know what you’re doing. You know more than you think you do. So use all that amazing knowledge of yours and choose an appropriate nursing diagnosis for your specific patient. If you need help choosing a great nursing diagnosis for your patient, be sure to check out the video we have all about how to choose a great nursing diagnosis for your patient. I’ll put a link to that video in the description below.
BONUS TIP number 2: Make the patient goals specific to your patient! Don’t write a patient goal that they have no interest in actually doing. This is a big one, sometimes we forget that patient goals are not about us, they are about the PATIENT. So make sure your patient goals are something that they are actually interested in working toward. So, for example, if your patient smokes but they have no intention of quitting, don’t write a patient goal of “the patient will quit smoking by the time they discharge,” that’s not patient centric and it’s not realistic for them. So make sure you actually write goals that are for that patient.
BONUS TIP number 3: the nursing interventions are all about YOU. This is something I often see nursing students get hung up on, nursing interventions are written as what the NURSE or NURSING STUDENT will do. That’s you. So your nursing interventions should be written as, “The nurse will…” So “the nurse will educate the patient on healthy food choices to lower blood sugar,” or “the nurse will assess the patient’s lung sounds every 4 hours,” things like that that are specific to your patient. So nursing interventions are written as what the NURSE or NURSING STUDENT will do.
Thanks for being all around amazing, my friend! Now go become the nurse that God created ONLY YOU to be. 🙂
