Decision-Making Process in the Nursing Profession

The nursing professional faces a lot of decision making process on a daily bases. The
Effectiveness of decision making process is crucial to ensuring positive out comes in the clinical
Settings. If the nursing process is misunderstood or misapplied to the decision-making process by failure to use critica thinking skills, the results can be damaging to the anticipated outcomes.
Furthermore, an imaturity in critical thinking may influnce decisions because of insufficient knowledge and experience.
Additionally, clinical maturity will be addressed as a key component of critical thinking and
Making clinical decision. Finally, these elements will be applied to a case scenario to
Demostrate the progression of clinical decision- making by applying critical thinking skills
Through the nursing process. When faced with clinical problems, they must go through an ordered series of steps to
Arrive at a sound clinical decision. While there are many versions of these steps, thay can be
Summarized as follow. First, the problem must be identified and stated (e.g. the patient is
Bleeding from laceration). Second, the goal must be stated. This may be multi- tiered (e.g.
The goal would be to stop the bleeding to prevent shock). Third, the goals must be prioritized
(e.g. stopping the bleeding must come first before the shock). Fourth, interventions must be
Developed to accomplish the goal (e.g. direct pressure, elevation, arterial pressure, and
Tourniquet). Finally, the interventions must be evaluated and ranked according to recognized
Standards of care ( e.g. dirrect pressure should come first, then elevation, then arterial
Pressure, then the use of tourniquet).
In conclusion, nursing process is surrounded by critical and clinical thinking inorder to make appropraite decision in patient care.