Concept Mapping and Care Plans

Concept Mapping and Care Plans

Introduction

A concept map care plan is a diagram of patient problems, supporting data, interventions and evaluations. Your ideas about patient problems are the “concepts” that will be diagrammed. These maps are used to organize patient data, analyze relationships in the data, and enable you to take a holistic view of the patient's situation. (Wheeler, Collins, 2003) Concept mapping requires critical thinking to analyze relationships in clinical data. Critical thinking and clinical reasoning are used to formulate clinical judgments and decisions about nursing care. The important ideas that must be linked together during concept map care planning are the medical and nursing diagnoses, along with all the pertinent clinical data. (Wheeler, Collins, 2003) Through concept mapping of diagnoses and clinical data, you can evaluate what you know about the care of your patient and what further information you need in order to provide safe and effective nursing care.

Steps In Concept Map Care Planning

The steps of the nursing process (assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing, and evaluating nursing care) are related to the development of concept map care plans. Before developing a concept map, the first thing you must do is gather clinical data. This step corresponds to the assessment phase of the nursing process. (Wheeler, Collins, 2003) You must review the patient's chart to determine his current health problem(s), medical history, physical assessment findings, prescribed medications, diagnostic measures, and treatments. In order to collect this data, the Patient Data Base form should be completed. This assessment tool becomes the basis for your concept map.

Step 1: Develop A Basic Skeleton Diagram

The initial diagram is composed of clinical impressions you make after reviewing all of the data. Write the patient's reason for admission (usually a medical diagnosis) in the circle at the top of the page. Next ...