How to Correct a Nursing Diagnosis

Medical personnel must correctly identify a patient's ailment before it can be treated. An incorrect diagnosis will misguide the healthcare team's treatment of the patient, so the nurse must quickly correct mistakes. The nurse reviews the nursing process to identify errors.

Instructions

• 1

  Analyze the five steps in the nursing process.

  Evaluate the results of treatment and identify problems. A nurse executes a five-step process of assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing the plan and evaluating the results. She repeats the cycle, continually assessing the patient and adapting treatment to changing conditions. Evaluation and assessment are two of the most critical elements in identifying a mistaken diagnosis in the nursing process. The evaluation reveals the error, and the assessment provides clues leading to the correct diagnosis.

• 2

  Begin with a reassessment.

  Conduct a follow-up interview with the patient. Carefully analyze the patient's responses to correct a misdiagnosis. A careful analysis of a patient's responses will often lead to the correct diagnosis.

• 3

  Members of the healthcare team work together.

  Observe individual differences in the patient's responses. A nurse provides personalized care, and her diagnosis focuses on the patient's symptoms. In treating a disease, a nurse concentrates on relieving the patient's pain and discomfort while a doctor focuses on fighting whatever's causing the disease. Accordingly, a nurse's diagnosis differs from a doctor's. A nurse will change her diagnosis as necessary and collect information to provide individualized care.

• 4

  Evaluate the patient treatment goals.

  Devise and implement a plan based on the most recent information. A nurse sets goals (expected outcomes) for the patient's treatment and evaluates the final results. She determines whether the prescribed treatment alleviates the patient's signs and symptoms, and revises the care plan according to the outcome. Unexpected outcomes indicate a possible misdiagnosis.

• 5

  The nurse makes a nursing diagnosis and the physician makes a medical diagnosis.

  Remember the physician's role and share information with the healthcare team. Report the patient's progress to team members. A nurse's and physician's diagnoses must reinforce one another. A nurse makes a nursing diagnosis that describes the patient's response to illness; a doctor makes a medical diagnosis that names the illness. The patient's symptoms should correspond to the correct diagnosis; otherwise, the nurse should suspect an error in diagnosis.