What do you think of Nursing Care Plans?

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  1. What do you think of nursing care plans

    • 3
      A vital tool to plan patient care
    • 1
      A good way to track patient progress
    • 8
      Sometimes helpful, but not too often
    • 22
      Great for nursing students to learn with
    • 13
      Foisted on nurses by academia
    • 28
      An utterly annoying waste of precious time
    • 15
      A tool of Satan to undermine patient care

90 members have participated

What do you think of Nursing Care Plans?

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Specializes in cardiac med-surg.

our hospital went looney for care plans maybe 15 years ago

every pt had to have one....and time goes by

they were miserable in college

don't use them now

i think i know what to do after 20 years of nursing

we have care maps for chf,acs,pci

they serve a purpose at least

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Just for fun, I said they are a tool of Satan. I also think they are foisted on bedside nurses by academia and a waste of precious time.

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Infusion, peds, informatics.

i voted for the "good tool for a student to learn" option (can't remember how you worded it).

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[color=#483d8b]i replied to you about this in the other thread.

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[color=#483d8b]though i hated them in school (maybe it should read "a torturous way to learn in school") because they were pure evil to do. the instrucors wanted so much detail, plus cited sources for things that were common sense. made my life miserable.

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[color=#483d8b]however, i think you use them more than you think. you just know what the interventions are for various diagnoses, and don't need to refer to the written care plan anymore. but i bet the process is still there. just because you don't have to write out the individual interventions and rationales doesn't mean that you arn't using a careplan. you had to learn all that stuff somehow.

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[color=#483d8b]at least in the hospital they have preprinted careplans that we can edit for the individual patient -- you know line out the "ambulation" intervention for the post-op abd surgery that just happened to have a bilat aka 10 years ago, or whatever.

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[color=#483d8b]and from what i read on this board, it sounds as though care plans are absolutely essential in ltc.

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[color=#483d8b]sorry, i really do understand your viewpoint. i actually agree with you that they are a huge waste of a med-surg or icu nurse's precious time. and it really irritates me that we are dinged on a survey because a paper careplan isn't on a particular patient's chart, since we are doing all that stuff anyway, even without the written careplan.

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[color=#483d8b]but i have to admit (grudgingly) that they have a place.

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i'm in school SO THEY ARE THE DEVILS TOOL lol

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

In the hospital I thought they were the biggest waste of time. By the time it was finished the patient was discharged. Nobody but nobody pay any attention to the careplan.

In HH I do see them as valuable on the 485. Other than that, worthless!

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Specializes in Rehab, LTC, Peds, Hospice.

Repetitive, common sense that only the state looks at in LTC. We pass on what to do for our patients in report and on a card hung up in a closet. HUGE WASTE OF TIME AND PAPER!

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.
[color=#483d8b]but i have to admit (grudgingly) that they have a place.
i agree.

careplans in nsg. school was the pits!

ack! ptooie! yuck!

and other assorted expressions of disgust :trout:

but just as we don't realize we are actively performing trigonometry and vectors when we estimate an approaching car as we are crossing a street - we probably don't realize that we end up "thinking through" the careplan. :)

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Specializes in ICU, SDU, OR, RR, Ortho, Hospice RN.

Ah as much as we despise them they are the only way a patient gets to have a say in their care whether they are in hospital or nursed at home as in the Hospice Setting etc

I am a Hospice RN and we use them with our patients. Asking about goals for care and areas that are problems to them assists them in deciding what is best for them. To do that you have to involve the patient/ clients right?

Sadly they are necessary but you can keep them simple and pertinent to that particular patient. They can get too wordy etc

Short sweet and to the point per patient I say!!

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I think care-maps that guide the plan of care with pre-printed orders, protocols, etc. are worthwhile because they are based on the medical model which is the way the pt receives care in a hospital. However, nursing care plans with nursing dx, nursing plans are worthless in the hospital because they don't guide the pt care, they are just meaningless paperwork.

My vote: give up nursing care plans and go to the medical model of care maps.

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Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.

I am a nursing student and find them a waste of time created by satan! I can understand that we need to understand the whole picture, but htere are much less time consuming methods of doing this!! Instead of concentrating on taking care of a patient or two I have to worry about asking them all sorts of questions, some of which have no bearing on the current admission, and on top of that I have to spend another 2 hours typing out the answers on the care plan, plus another 2-3 doing the rest of it! :barf01:

Swtooth

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Nursing care plans as required were school could use a lot of refinement. We'd have to spend hours writing and rewriting the rational for routine care (nourishment, ambulation, pressure sore prevention, psychosocial support). I can see that those things are important and that students should learn the why and not just the what. However, those are basics and can be taught and incorporated in one's work without having to spell it out over and over and over in lengthy care plans.

And why take the extra step of adding special "nursing diagnoses" to conditions that already have clearly understood labels? It's an extra step of creating traditional care plans that gets cut out in practice. Nurses can plan care for a patient (turn patient to prevent pressure sores) without creating a unique nursing diagnosis (risk for impaired skin integrity).

A patient care plan IS important. And a care plan of nursing care can help delineate the nurse's role in the patient care. Nursing care plans as were taught in school, not so useful, unfortunately.

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