Care Planning Takes FOREVER!

Iluvhospice · Nov 7, 2004

Yes, it gets easier, it gets faster - and eventually you don't have to use the careplan book anymore because you can think of your own goals and interventions...

In the meantime, invest in a good careplan book, make certain that your nursing diagnoses include "as manifested by" criteria from YOUR patient - not what is stated in the book. Also include action interventions - not merely monitor, assess, etc. These are important and you WILL be doing them, but most instructors want you to teach and do things to help the patient with whatever medical problem they're having. Example: Encouraging fluid intake for a client with pneumonia (provided it's not contraindicated because they also have COPD and are on 800cc/day restriction!:chuckle ) Why? It helps break up the mucus and keeps the patient well hydrated.

Once you understand the process, you're set. You'll get there - soon!

wonderbee, BSN, RN · Nov 7, 2004

The careplans themselves no longer take me a lot of time. It's all the paperwork that goes with them. We two page DHAT, a VS assessment flow sheet, a systems assessment flow sheet, nurse's notes that reflect rounding every two hours, the lab sheets that have to include all pertinent labs whether in range or not, a med sheet and a heparin assessment flow sheet if we're using IV heparin therapy. THEN we get to the care plans. We have to do complete three of them with one priority nursing diagnosis. What we wind up turning in is practically a complete chart. Very time consuming when there's a test to study for and a ton of new reading to do.

stressgal, RN · Nov 7, 2004

Best advice I ever got was to purchase the Nursing Diagnosis Cards. These contain 200+ care plans with detailed patient outcomes, long and short term. They also give rationals for each intervention. ISBN # 1-58255-218-5. I have two care plan books and I find them hard to use since they are listed by medical diagnosis. These cards have been a GREAT investment. As a matter of fact a classmate is stopping by today to use them. Good luck!

kathy_79 · Nov 7, 2004

i spend at my care plan 40hs last course. thank God we had only one to do. it is too much time consuming, not use at real word, but helpfull to organize and prepare nurse skills for future on the other hand. i have my next due first week of december, so i hope this week pt will be the one. :)

kellyo, LPN · Nov 8, 2004

My clinicals are M-T from 6:45 am to 12:45 pm, but we don't seem to ever leave before 1:30. On Monday, I leave the hospital, go home and have something to eat. By then, it's almost 3, and time to start the care plan. I take a break about 6:00 for dinner, bathe the kids and tuck them in bed. Then from 8 pm until 1 am I'm working on my care plan! Then it's up at 5 am for Tuesday's clinicals!

manna, BSN, RN · Nov 11, 2004

I second the good care plan book! I personally like the Sparks & Taylor one, been using my instructor's and asking for one of my own for Christmas (too poor to order it myself :chuckle ! )

RN NascarFan, RN · Nov 11, 2004

I have 4 careplan books AND the cards

I am now in psych rotation. We have to have Dx for every assessment area and four under self-concept for a total of 15 Dx :eek:

It is a progressive CP and I have changed Dx twice already with four more weeks to go :uhoh21:

SmilingBluEyes · Nov 11, 2004

You will see the same diagnoses again and again. Use a computer/word processor and save these, collecting them as you write the care plans. As you go on, you will use the same diagnoses and interventions again and again--simple copy and paste those you already have to the new care plan, personalizing as you need to. I went from spending 12 hours on my first care plan to a matter of an hour or less by the time I was through. Thank goodness for computers! Make the technology at your disposal work for you---it's what we do in the "real world" of nursing EVERY day. Good luck.

belladelicious · Nov 13, 2004

Oh yes...it gets faster! It took me hours and hours to do my first care plans...duh, b/c I didn't know anything!

Now I can do them in 5 minutes and have no red marks by the teacher on it.

The assessment paperwork, ours are probably different..but yes, that for me, takes longer than I'd like. But, I'm getting a little better.

Also...I bought the Mosby's careplan book...and I'm not that impressed with it...so I wouldn't buy it.

And psych careplans to me are awful!

truern · Nov 13, 2004

SmilingBluEyes, in my program we're not allowed to turn in NCPs with the same nursing diagnosis. They even write down in our permanent clinical folder what our care plans are on each semester

We can use the same nursing dx on our "mini" careplans for each patient, just not the BIG NCPs.

truern · Nov 13, 2004

Manna, I love that care plan book

It's divided into sections specific to the patient population...adult nursing, peds, neonates, psych, etc. I find myself using it more than all my other books combined.