Prioritizing Nursing Care

An effective good nurse will understand the importance of prioritizing their patients care, understanding what responsibilities need to be taken care of, and which patients come first in the order of care.

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs provides each nurse with a priority of client care needs organized to provide the best care to your client directed toward preventing any type of harm. Maslow Hierarchy of Need is ranked based on the highest and lowest priorities.

1. Physiology

2. Safety

3. Love

4. Esteem

5. Self-Actualization

You will also need to rank your patient care on specific needs of each client to provide care to which client is in need of your attention first. This can be obtained by following your ABCD's of care.

A: Airway

B: Breathing

C: Circulation

D: Disability

For example you would care for a patient whose airway is obstructed before you would care for a patient with a circulation problem.

When you are prioritizing your care for a group of patients you will want to identify the problem of each patient, review your patients nursing diagnoses, determine which of your patients problems are most urgent (based on, basic needs, clients change in status, complexity of clients problem), anticipate the time that will be needed to properly care for client, combine activities when possible to use time wisely, and involve your patient as much as possible in their care.

One of the most important parts of nursing is the ability to delegate, this is the act of having someone due some aspect of a clients care, assignment, or work that needs accomplished. It is very important that the delegating nurse understands the legal responsibilities when delegating a task. The delegated task must be within the scope of practice to which the nurse is delegating too. For instance an registered nurse would not delegate to a licensed practical nurse to adjust a titrated medication as this is out of the scope of practice for an licensed practical nurse and a licensed practical nurse would not delegate to a nurses aid to administer a medications via an injection to a client as this would be out of the scope of practice for a nurses aid.

It is important for the nurse to always ensure their clients safety, by ensuring their client's safety they are not only ensuring proper care, they are making sure that everything following their care is done properly. For instance, the right tasks are being delegated to the proper person, proper care is given at proper times and they are always acting as the clients advocate.