Process for Developing Nursing Standards - Essay Example

"Process for Developing Nursing Standards" is a great example of a paper on care.
The standards of practice for nursing are defined as those statements that are authoritative in nature and these standards outline the roles and functions that professionals from the field have to abide by and are held accountable. Nursing standards are developed in a step by step process which initiates with the revision of the philosophy of nursing. This revision of the philosophy assists the leaders from the nursing field with the opportunity to develop expectations in the area of care as well as the performance of those who belong to the profession (Schroeder, 1991). The second step is the development of a committee and its structure. The committee that is responsible for the review and development of these standards includes professionals from the field including those who are practicing nursing as well as those who fall in the category of instructors. The next step in the development of standards was the definition of terms that are used commonly in the field and standardization of these terms. Before these standards were developed different professionals were using different terms to define different practices and many times the definitions used to overlap with other terms which resulted in confusion and misunderstanding. Once the terms used in practice were defined in a standard manner, the committee was assigned the responsibility of reorganization the operating and practice procedure manual. While developing the manual the committee was required to identify duplicate content and then remove the duplicate content. These manuals only focused on providing guidelines that were generic in nature.

Different organizations are involved in the development of standards of practice including ANA (American Nursing Association) which developed the first standards in written form for nursing during the period of 1950 (Murphy, 1995). But these standards were only the ethical codes that nurses had to follow. Later during the period of 1973, the ANA published its first generic standards for the practice of nursing and these standards were applicable in different nursing settings (Murphy, 1995). The standards that have been developed by ANA include standards for assessment, diagnoses based on the date of assessment, identification of the outcomes, planning of the route of care, and implementation of the plan. Along with ANA, the CAN which is the Canada-based nursing associate even developed standards for practice that were similar to the nursing standards developed by the American Association, and in America, several states obtain guidelines from standards developed by both (Murphy, 1995). Other than ANA there have been other organizations that have assisted in the development of these standards including a private organization called JCAHO. This organization has the responsibility of providing accreditation to different healthcare organizations operate in the United States. A third organization involved in the development of nursing standards is the ANCC which is a national-level organization. Other than these organizations various members of the committee that belong to professionals as well as the educational aspect of nursing are also involved in the development of standards.