Nursing Trends
As nurses, we are constantly interacting with patients and their families. We often have to make quick decisions that can affect the patient’s health and well-being. We need to be aware of the nursing implications of our decisions so that we can provide the best possible care for our patients. In this blog post, we will discuss what nursing implications are and how they can affect our patients.
So what are nursing implications?
Nursing implications are the possible outcomes that can occur as a result of our decisions regarding patient care. It’s important to consider possible nursing implications when making any decisions regarding patient care. Nursing implications include both diagnostic and therapeutic consequences.
Diagnostic consequences occur if we were wrong in our assumptions or course of action, while therapeutic consequences occur after we have completed our course of action and could potentially lead to undesirable effects on the patient’s health and well-being. This includes all actions and processes used in providing patient care.
Let’s look at an example: Suppose you notice that your patient has developed a fever overnight following surgery after receiving morphine for pain management during his procedure. You already know that fever is one symptom of a possible postoperative infection. You also know from nursing school that morphine can suppress the immune system, making patients more susceptible to infections.
In this case, you will have to make a decision regarding your patient’s care based on evidence from this acquired knowledge. You may decide to increase your patient’s pain medication and reassess his pain level in an hour or two, which will provide temporary relief of pain while allowing him more strength to fight the infection. You would also make sure that you start him on antibiotic therapy as soon as possible.
We nurses need to consider nursing implications when making decisions because our decisions can affect a person’s health and well-being. On the one hand, we want to provide the best care we can; however, we don’t want to compromise our patients’ safety and comfort.
We need to be able to weigh both sides of the decision before making the right choice for our patients. After all, it is better to have some knowledge about what could happen if we’re wrong than to just guess and risk our patient’s health.
The importance of nursing implication in nursing practice
Nursing is a healthcare profession that specializes in providing care for individuals, communities, and families, so they might attain, maintain or recover optimal health and quality of life. The nursing process is the method by which nurses link their observations to actions aimed at achieving the desired outcome when caring for patients.
In practicing nursing, a nurse needs to understand all body system functions within a reasonable degree of detail since this provides a background from which one can identify the abnormal function and plan interventions. The nursing process specifically identifies five phases: Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation.
These processes are not separate entities but work together as an integrated whole, with each phase leading logically into the next. Many times during these phases, nurses will develop nursing implications. A nursing implication is a statement that follows from an assessment finding or assessment of the situation.
The implication should include both the identified problem and the expected outcome, with consideration given to altering situations and identifying resources available to assist in planning interventions. Nursing Implications play an important role beyond the immediate care of a patient. Nursing implications play an important role in the decision-making process, as this is how nurses link and organize their observations and actions.
From these findings and decisions, nurses can then determine changes or interventions that need to be implemented into practice. During the assessment phase, which oftentimes is not completed by one individual but rather by a group, nursing implications become relevant during treatment planning, where they can be identified and developed into goals for the plan of care.
These goals help track patient progress over time and can also provide evidence to prove or disprove whether or not certain interventions were effective. This feedback loop helps nurses make better-informed treatment choices which ultimately assist in improving patient care. Implications that are identified should be specific, achievable, measurable, and time-sensitive.
Nurses have to take into consideration other factors such as the patient’s age, home environment, financial status, etc. When developing nursing implications. Nurses need to assess what impact their implication will have on other areas of care while also ensuring that the implication chosen supports the desired outcome.
Now let’s look at an example of a nursing implication in practice:
Problem: The patient experiences restlessness at night. Nursing implication- The nurse should explore whether the patient is experiencing pain or anxiety, which are common causes of restlessness in patients with dementia. Now that we have seen an example, let’s deconstruct this into its relevant components.
First, there was a problem identified; then, nursing implications were used to help identify what further action would be taken to address it. In developing these implications, take into consideration the following questions: Is your implication specific? Does it fully develop your intended outcome? Is your implication achievable?
Will you have the necessary support available to get this implemented successfully? Can you measure success using the goal you have set out for? You address all factors while considering how nursing implications fit into the bigger picture of patient care. Nursing implications develop action plans for each problem that is identified, ultimately making nursing practice more focused and relevant to evidence-based practice.
Nursing implications coupled with goal setting provide further opportunities for nurses to communicate their concerns and expectations to other members of the interdisciplinary team, which helps facilitate better continuity of care. This type of approach also encourages clinical reasoning through all steps in the process leading up to the actual implementation.
Using this method, nurses can determine whether or not interventions are effective and if any changes need to be made throughout the planning phase (Goal Attainment Theory).
