Nursing Process and Pharmacotherapy Assignment

The nursing process is one of the most fundamental yet crucial aspects of the nursing profession. It guides patient care in a manner that creates an effective, safe, and health promoting process. The purpose and focus of this assessment paper is to detail the core aspects of the nursing process and creating nursing diagnoses for patients in a formal paper.Nursing Process and Pharmacotherapy Assignment The nursing process allows nurses to identify a patient’s health status, their current health problems, and also identify any potential health risks the patient may have. The nursing process is a broad assessment tool that can be applied to every patient but results in an individualized care plan tailored to the most important needs of the patient. The nurse can then implement this …show more content…

The implementation phase requires the nurse to assist the patient to reaching the desired health goals, and interventions. For the most success, patience and communication is necessary between the nurse and the patient during this stage. The fifth and final stage of the nursing process involves evaluations of the patient’s improvement compared to the end goal. This process should be individualized and can be modified at any point to optimize the success of the patient in reaching the goals (Taylor et al, 2011). These steps are flexible and allow the nurse to prioritize current issues, but also be prepared for changes in problems to arise as patient conditions change. Nursing Process and Pharmacotherapy Assignment
Creating care plans for patients involves the creation of nursing diagnoses. A nursing diagnosis consists of a two or three-part statement that is prioritizes a crucial nursing concern for a patient, usually in regards to the patient’s admitting diagnosis. The nurse uses assessments, lab data, patterns, strengths, and patient problems, to identify a major health concern and develop a nursing diagnosis statement (Taylor et al, 2011). The second part of the nursing diagnosis is the etiology, which identifies the factors that are contributing to or causing the patients health concern. This etiology identifies what is preventing the desired change or maintaining the unhealthy state.
JF is a 79-year-old retired female who was brought to our attention with chief complains of ongoing cramping in her legs since 3-4 months ago. She is about 160 cm tall and weighs ~68 Kg (BMI 26.6).Nursing Process and Pharmacotherapy Assignment The possibilities of a statin-induced myalgia will be discussed in her dyslipidemia PCP. JF’s current medical conditions include COPD, depression, dyslipidemia (secondary prevention of cardiovascular events), hypertension (pos-MI), and GERD. She currently takes the following medications: ramipril 5mg once daily (AM), HCTZ 25 mg once daily (AM), atorvastatin 40 mg once daily (AM), salbutamol 100 mcg 2 puffs QID, ipratropium 20 mcg 2 puffs TID, fluticasone/salmeterol 250/25 mcg 2 puffs BID, pantoprazole 40 mg once daily (AM), escitalopram 10 mg once daily (AM), ASA 81 mg once daily (AM), diltiazem CD 120 mg once daily (AM), and calcium carbonate/vitamin D (500 mg/800 IU BID PC). Please see the attachments for her latest lab results. JF was diagnosed with stage 1 HTN, GERD, and dyslipidemia ~13 years ago for which she took HCTZ 25 mg, ranitidine 300 mg, and atorvastatin 10 mg. Her past medical history include lung cancer (surgically removed a lobe from her left lung, treated with chemotherapy in 2004),Nursing Process and Pharmacotherapy Assignment