Prioritization Principles

Prioritization Assignment

Prioritization Assignment Rubric

Overview:

Nursing leadership and management focuses on prioritization of client care. There are prioritization principles nurses use to appropriately prioritize care. The Prioritization Assignment serves as an avenue for students to apply and become familiar with nursing prioritization principles to ensure success on the application of prioritization in the clinical setting.

Assignment:

Students will create 2 patients that meet the descriptions for each of the 7 prioritization principles outlined below. One patient will be the priority and the other will be the “nonurgent” patient. Then the student will describe which Priority Setting Framework best fits the scenario.

The following are the guidelines discussed in the ATI Leadership & Management book. See Chapter 1 for details in each of the principles and frameworks.

Prioritization Principles

Priority Setting Frameworks

· Systemic before local—life before limb

· Maslow’s hierarchy

· Acute before chronic

· Airway breathing circulation (ABC) framework

· Actual problems before potential future problems

· Safety/risk reduction

· Listen carefully to clients and don’t assume

· Assessment/data collection first

· Trends vs. transient findings

· Survival potential

· Medical emergencies and complications vs. expected findings

· Least restrictive/least invasive

· Apply clinical knowledge to procedural standards to determine the priority action.

· Acute vs chronic, urgent vs. nonurgent, stable vs. unstable

· Evidence-based practice

These do not need to be long and detailed. Just a quick overview. Students CANNOT use the examples that are in the ATI book. Students will complete this for EACH principle for a total of seven scenarios.

Example:

Prioritization principle: Recognize indications of medical emergencies and complications vs. expected findings:

· Priority patient: 46 year-old female with a diagnosis of CVA with increased BP and decreased HR and altered LOC.

· Non-emergent patient: 67 year-old male with a diagnosis of CVA showing signs of left-sided weakness and aphasia.

Priority Setting Framework: Urgent vs. nonurgent, stable vs. unstable

The priority patient is exhibiting signs of IICP, which is indicates that the patient’s current needs are urgent. IICP is considered an unstable state. The non-emergent patient is showing signs of expected signs of a patient that has suffered a CVA. There are not any indications that there is an urgent finding at the moment, thus they would not be priority.

Component

Criteria

Points Awarded

Priority Patient

Patient must be appropriately described to meet the criteria to be the priority patient based on the principle that is being described.

There should be a total of seven priority patients, each worth 4 points for a total of 28 points.

/28

Nonurgent Patient

Patient must be appropriately described to meet the criteria to be the nonurgent patient based on the principle that is being described.

There should be a total of seven nonurgent patients, each worth 4 points for a total of 28 points.

/28

Rationale & Prioritization Framework

Student must discuss why the priority patient must be addressed first in comparison to the nonurgent patient and include the prioritization framework that is used to guide the student’s decision for prioritization of care.

There should be a total of seven rationales (one for reach principle), each worth 4 points for a total of 28 points.

/28

Content Presentation

· Work should be organized and easy to understand and identify both patients and rationale/prioritization framework.

· Grading rubric included as first page

· Grammar: punctuation & spelling

/16

Assignment Grade

/100