The Importance Of Critical Thinking In Health Care Patients

Have a minute? What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words ‘critical thinking’? To many, these are just common words. To the nursing world, however, these two small words play a vital role in their everyday tasks. The critical thinking ability of health care professionals can have a direct effect on patient safety (Robert and Petersen, 2013). With that being said, critical thinking is the backbone of the nursing world. This paper will focus on how one will use critical thinking in nursing practice when making clinical decisions for a group of patients. Since day one of nursing school, critical thinking has been at the top of skills that need to be learned for one to be successful as a future nurse. According to Robert …show more content…
One way that I will use critical thinking for a group of patients is by utilizing the nursing process. According to Schub (2014), “the nursing process, a systematic, problem-solving approach used to diagnose and guide treatment for human responses to health and illness, is a critical thinking competency” (Evaluation of Critical Thinking Skills, para. 7, 8). As I started my clinical rotations it became clearer on how important critical thinking really was. Whether I have one patient, or three that day, I must use critical thinking to make sure that I am doing what is best for that patient without causing harm to them Schub stated (2014), “in competent nursing practice, critical thinking permeates all steps of the nursing process” (i.e. assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and …show more content…
For example, when I receive a handoff report on clinical mornings for the three different patients I have that day, I know they are all going to have problems that are going to need to be addressed. As the nurse, I must use critical thinking skills to put these patients in order by who I am going to see first and last. Many believe that the ability of nurses to think critically could also be linked to improved clinical judgements and better decision-making in patient care (Evaluation of Critical Thinking Skills, para. 2, 9). By being able to critically think and prioritize my patients I will be able to provide safe and quality care for each patient based on their situation. By using critical thinking in prioritization, I will be able to work with other areas of the hospital like physical therapy, occupational therapy, respiratory therapy, radiology, dietary, case managers etc. to ensure that this patient will get the care that they