Question:
I like care plans in the nursing school because they teach you to think in
terms of nursing interventions and nursing methodology. Yeah they were a
pain in the ass. Took me forever to write them up. Basically it was like
writing a term paper on every patient - because our care plans in school
required us to write down the science behind every intervention. I learned
much from writing those care plans because they helped me apply all that I
had been learning in class and memorizing from textbooks.
But the hospitals I'm familar with do not require working, staff RN's to
write up care plans. I've seen a few hospitals that require the RN to stick
a standardized care plan in a chart but the thing is already written up so
it's not a big time-waster. Is any hospital requiring staff nurses to
actually write up care plans?
Answer:
Many smaller hospitals in rural areas don't have standardized care plans.
Some have computer programs that allow you to choose specific nursing
diagnoses, and then list interventions for that diagnoses.
JCAHO requirements are that nursing care plans are present and modified for
each patient. They must also be charted on... I believe that the
requirement is daily. If you have careplans in the chart that haven't been
individualized, modified, and updated daily, then JCAHO will ding you for
it.
