Clinical Decision-Making Processes in Emergency Nursing

Abstract

The aim of this research paper is to explore the processes of clinical decision-making in relation to emergency nurses and to examine the educational requirements for the development of clinical decision-making skills. Clinical decision-making is foundational to professional nursing practice. It is the expectation of the profession and the organisations in which nurses work that appropriate clinical decision-making will occur. Patients also rightly expect, when being cared for by nurses, that the clinical decisions pertaining to their care will be optimal. My interest in the topic of clinical decision-making stems firstly from my own developing personal awareness of my nursing practice and secondly from my role in the development and support of new nursing staff into the work of nursing in an emergency department. In my own experience and from observation of others, my conclusion is that good clinical decision-making is not an inherent skill of nurses but is a skill obtained in an ongoing developmental process. To nurture sound clinical decision-making skills in nurses new to emergency nursing it then becomes necessary to understand what clinical decision-making is, the processes involved in it, and how clinical decision-making can be enhanced through education. Nursing within an emergency department has many requirements singular to the specialty. The workload is not constant, but rather ebbs and flows. In addition, patients are undifferentiated, in that a diagnosis is not known, providing potential patient risk. The importance of skilled clinical decision-making by emergency nurses is essential in the provision of appropriate patient care in this unpredictable and complex environment.