Nurses with effective clinical reasoning skills have a positive impact on patient outcomes. Conversely, those with poor clinical reasoning skills often fail to detect impending patient deterioration resulting in a “failure-to-rescue” (Aiken, Clarke, Cheung, Sloane, & Silber, 2003). This is significant when viewed against the background of increasing numbers of adverse patient outcomes and escalating healthcare complaints (NSW Health, 2006). According to the NSW Health Incident Management in the NSW Public Health System 2007 (2008) the top three reasons for adverse patient outcomes are: failure to properly diagnose, failure to institute appropriate treatment, and inappropriate management of complications. Each of these is related to poor clinical
