[Barbara Workman, Clare Bennet] Key Nursing Skills

The ‘nursing process’ is a planned, problem-solving approach tomeeting a patient’s health care and nursing needs (Lippincott 2000). It is a systematic sequence of events in which the first stage is to assess a patient’s needs by the collection of objective and subjective information.The next stage is interpretation of this information, whichresultsin the identification of actual or potential problems that the patientis experiencing. This can be called making a nursing diagnosis (Lippincott 2000). Nursing goals to alleviate or prevent these problemscan then be determined and problems prioritized so that thepatient’simmediate nursing care needs are met. These goals are usedtoplan the direction and type of nursing interventions required. They should be patient-focused, and SMART:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timebound
For example, a patient may state his problem as being extreme breathlessness at rest. A short-term goal may be that his respiration rate will be 25–28 breaths per minute within four hours. This would allow time for medication and nursing measures to take effect. This goal statement fulfils the SMART requirements, and would be followed by specific nursing interventions that would contribute to achieving the goal. There are examples of problems and goals throughout this book, together with nursing interventions to meet the goals.