What are care plans?

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 28, 2004

A care plan is a document used for teaching the process of nursing and assessing a student's progress. Faculty members ask the students to write a care plan so that the faculty can see what the student has learned about the patient's needs and how the student is going to provide care for that patient.

Every school (and every instructor) has his/her own particular format and expectations for writing care plans. However, most formats include a written assessment of the patient and a list of the patients main problems that require nursing care. Most formats also include a section in which the student states what interventions are appropriate for patients with those problems and an explanation as to why those interventions are appropriate. In other words, the student is asked to explain the rationale for the actions they plan to take. Finally, most care plan formats ask the student to identify how they will measure the outcomes of their interventions. In other words, "How will you know whether or not your actions are helping or hurting the patient?"

Care plans force students to make their thinking visible -- to clearly articulate what they are going to do to the patient and why. This allows the faculty to evaluate whether or not the student is on the right track. Students usually hate writitng them because it is difficult to justify everything you do.

There is a lot of controversy about the needs to have similar documentation in non-teaching situations. Some nurses have tried to use care plans similar to the ones used in teaching to document daily care by professionals in a hospital. Most experts think that is a bad idea -- but no one has yet come up with an ideal format for daily practice. The need is real to document the plan of care, but what is needed is different in a non-teaching situation. The profession has not yet come to a concensus about what is needed and a lot of different documentation systems exist.

I hope this helps,

llg

studentnurse74, LPN, LVN · Jan 28, 2004

Thanks for clarifying.

Wheaties · Jan 28, 2004

for those people who are nurses, BSN RN, do you people use careplans in the workplace? hospital?

because it seems care plans are time consuming.

Headhurt, ADN · Jan 28, 2004

care plan: (kair-plan) n. : a document designed to suck whatever joy a nursing student may have during their nursing school experience. Also valuable in consuming time that you could be spending with your family.

Actually, most hospitals have pre-printed careplans. Its not so much you are going to be writing a bunch when you get out into the field. Its purpose is geared more towards teaching a nursing student how to think like a nurse.

What is the problem?

What's the problem caused by?

What you want the end result to be?

What methods are you going to use to achieve the end result?

Why those methods?

What is the outcome? Is it what you wanted? If no, then why not?

If you think about it, we live our everyday lives according to care plan standards. Flat tire? Dirty dishes? Annoying upstairs neighbor that keeps flicking their cigarette butts onto your patio?

Good luck!!

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 28, 2004

Most facilities have some sort of "plan of care" document, but they are not as big and detailed as the ones created by students for the purposes of learning and documenting their progress. There are a wide variety of fomats -- mostly because no one has yet found a simple one that everyone likes.

llg

bonjovigirl · Jan 29, 2004

Originally posted by Headhurt
care plan: (kair-plan) n. : a document designed to suck whatever joy a nursing student may have during their nursing school experience. Also valuable in consuming time that you could be spending with your family.

You got that perfect. I know there is a real reason we do them, but that feels like what they are for. They are the only reason I dread school. I love everything else, but those *gosh* *darn* care plans.

suzy253, RN · Jan 29, 2004

:roll

Perfect definition.

In fact I just finished a care plan on a patient I had three weeks ago....due tomorrow. I started it right after clinical, did some more, gave up...couldn't think, put it off, put it off...thought of something else I should be doing and finally finished it this evening as a chill went down my spine today in nursing arts lab as my instructor reminded me my care plan is due tomorrow. Well, at least I got it done and won't have to worry about another one for awhile. They certainly are time consuming!!!

bonjovigirl · Jan 30, 2004

suzy253

Are youtelling me you don't have to do a care plan every week? We have one due each and every week, the day after our second clinical, (clinical is tuesday and wednesday, same pt, care plan due thursday morning) care plan includes a few paragraphs of patho of the system effected, and patho of the problem, and the usual care plan garbage.

How many do you have to do a semester??? I am jealous...

nekhismom · Jan 30, 2004

Originally posted by Headhurt
care plan: (kair-plan) n. : a document designed to suck whatever joy a nursing student may have during their nursing school experience. Also valuable in consuming time that you could be spending with your family.

That is the truth!! My first thought when I saw this thread was "horrible, life-altering, sleep-depriving, NEVER-ENDING-23-hour-taking-TORTURE!!!!"

We had to do a careplan on every pt. on the med-surg floor in our first med-surg semester. Clinicals were Tue and thur. Careplans were due at 0800 friday. If you had a rotation off the floor on tue, then you didn't meet your pt. until thur, had to compile all the data and type the stupid plan up, and needless to say, you were up all night. If your pt. on tue. got discharged, well, you just had to do 2 for that week. And they better both be absolutely perfect!!! ANd it was HELL!!! In OB, we had to do one on a laboring pt, and one for a PP pt. In Peds, we had to do 1 on a child and one on a newborn. It was much simpler. IN my last semster of m/s, we had to do 1 long form, and if it was satisfactory, then 1 short form. We also had to complete 2 teaching plans. They were much easier.

Careplans NEARLY made me quit nursing school. I HATED THEM!!!

:eek: You mean some of you get WEEKS to complete a careplan??? :eek:

meownsmile, BSN, RN · Jan 30, 2004

YES,, i think the rest of you have hit the nail on the head. 15-20 hours of sheer hell with no reasonably lifealtering outcome except for your own sleep deprivation and a bad case of writers cramp. WE didnt get to type ours,, hand written only. Geez, we are in the 21st centruy.

To those of you just learning the REAL reason for the student care plan, keep it to yourself, dont even hint at your instructor that you know the real reason or your bound to have to do double the number you originally are told to do. :eek:

suzy253, RN · Jan 31, 2004

Originally posted by bonjovigirl
suzy253
Are youtelling me you don't have to do a care plan every week? We have one due each and every week, the day after our second clinical, (clinical is tuesday and wednesday, same pt, care plan due thursday morning) care plan includes a few paragraphs of patho of the system effected, and patho of the problem, and the usual care plan garbage.

How many do you have to do a semester??? I am jealous...

Bonjovigirl--don't be jealous...please:)

Whilst we don't have a care plan due every week, we do have to do an 'a.m. report'. Clinicals are thurs & fris and (luckily) we have the weekend to do our report but it literally takes all weekend. It is a total of a 12-page form where we have to report vitals based on our assessment, and every other body system on our patient, meds, abnormal blood values and then our intervention followed by the rationale (with reference) r/t our patient. It takes a lot of time to locate the proper rationale r/t the specific disease state, etc. but I consider our reports a wonderful learning experience. I have learned so much from them an no longer stumble through them. I'm in 2nd semester of freshman year and we have only 2 care plans per semester but that will change in the junior year. We also have to do teaching plans and communication plans. I find it takes me much longer to do our care plans than our 12-page a.m. reports!!!

Cheers :)