Priority setting when problems compete
8 questions on this concept, from 4 angles.
The idea in full
When several problems in one patient, or several patients, compete for the nurse's attention at once, the order of care is set first by threat to life — an actual or imminent compromise of the airway, then of breathing, then of circulation — and then by Maslow's hierarchy, physiological needs before safety before psychosocial needs, so that an unstable, acute or unexpected problem is attended before a stable, chronic or expected one regardless of how loudly it presents, which diagnosis sounds gravest or who asked first, the patient's own preferences deciding the order only among needs that do not threaten survival, and the ranking is redone every time the picture changes rather than fixed once at the start of the shift.
Beliefs this concept corrects
- 1The patient in the most pain, or calling the loudest, is seen first
- 2Any problem with a breathing or cardiac label outranks everything else, even when it is stable and expected
- 3A new physician order is the first priority because the physician set it
- 4A risk-for problem can always wait behind an actual problem, whatever the risk is to
- 5The patient's own stated priority is the nurse's first priority
- 6Once the priorities are set at the start of the shift they hold until the end of it
- 7An expected finding after a procedure is as urgent as an unexpected one
- 8Psychosocial distress never moves up the list, even when it is the threat to safety
Your record
8 questions · 4 anglesYou have not practised this concept yet.