Nursing Dx

The plan of care may be recorded on a single page or in a multiple-page format, with one page for each nursing diagnosis or client diagnostic statement. The format for documenting the plan of care is determined by agency policy. As a practicing professional, you might use a computer with a plan-of-care database, preprinted standardized care plan forms, or clinical pathways. Whichever form you use, the plan of care enables visualization of the nursing process and must reflect the basic nursing standards of care; personal client data; nonroutine care; and qualifiers for interventions and outcomes, such as time, frequency, or amount.

As students, you are asked to develop plans of care that often contain more detail than what you see in the hospital plans of care. This is to help you learn how to apply the nursing process and create individualized client care plans. However, even though much time and energy may be spent focusing on filling the columns of traditional clinical care plan forms, some students never develop a holistic view of their clients and fail to visualize how each client need interacts with other identified needs. A new technique or learning tool has been developed to assist you in visualizing the linkages, to enhance your critical thinking skills, and to facilitate the creative process of planning client care.

Concept maps allow you to do something that is different and creative. They require you to think (and learn), make connections, and use colors and shapes. They help you to focus on the client; and having the map on one page helps you to understand the “whole picture” better. Concept maps also help you to become better organized and to develop your own unique approach to “thinking like a nurse” much sooner.

Concept mapping is painting a picture using colors of the rainbow on blank paper to tell the story of your client using “NANDA” nursing diagnoses and the nursing process. Previously, I was a student in prison (my mind) who hated the words “CARE PLAN,” writing page after page in narrative form. It was laborious to do and boring to read. There was no life or heartbeat.

Concept mapping opened the prison doors, and my care plan took on human form with a VOICE, a beating HEART, and COLOR while still incorporating the nursing process and standardized nursing language. My mind now took on the professional thought process that NANDA, NIC, and NOC were created to facilitate nursing; however, the magic was in concept mapping, which removed all my fears, and the client became a beautiful painting with a heartbeat.