Nursing Education & Patient Safety

Nursing care

A nursing care provides direction on the type of nursing care the individual/family/community may need. The main focus of a nursing care plan is to facilitate standardised, evidence-based and holistic care. Nursing care plans have been used for quite a number of years for human purposes and are now also getting used in the veterinary profession. A care plan includes the following components: assessment, diagnosis, expected outcomes, interventions, rationale and evaluation. The care plan is essentially the documentation of this process. It includes within it a set of actions the nurse will apply to resolve/support nursing diagnoses identified by nursing assessment. Care plans make it possible for interventions to be recorded and their effectiveness assessed. Nursing care plans provide continuity of care, safety, quality care and compliance.