Why Is Nurse Prioritization Important

Nursing prioritization is being able to identify the most important patient needs and know which actions need to be done first. You have to make judgments about priorities and formulate a decision based on the hierarchy of needs. The first priority of care is your patients ABC’s, airway, breathing, and circulation. Sudden changes in patients vital signs and/or level of consciousness is the second priority. The third priority is if the patient has unstable metabolic disorders, and the fourth level of priority is patient pain management.
Why Prioritization in Nursing Is Important Everyday nurse’s work in intense and complex clinical settings where they have to use prioritization to find a safe order for their patient’s need for care. Nursing prioritization is a very critical aspect of patient care because without prioritization we could potentially harm or lose a patient if the nurse did not give proper care to the patient when it was needed. In the International Journal of Nursing Practice, it is stated that, “Effective nursing prioritization of the patient need for care is the key to nurses ‘getting it right’ …show more content…
Nurses use discretionary judgement and ongoing assessments to prioritize the patient need for care throughout the many aspects of individual patient situations as they unfold. New nurses may be overwhelmed by trying to prioritize patient need for care with different situations while trying to follow specific rules and protocols. On the other hand, experienced nurses use evidence-based practice to know how to best prioritize patient need for care. Experienced nursing have more confidence than new nurses in making appropriate choices for action and developing an effective response for prioritizing patient need for care. Increasing confidence with this skill is what develops expertise, which is best learnt through experiential learning (Lake, Moss, Duke,