The written nursing process: is it still useful to nursing education?

As nursing practice becomes more complex, and patient care more variable, it will be crucial for nurse educators to teach students to think creatively and to develop a repertoire of strategies to resolve patient problems. The written nursing process has been the primary tool that nurse educators use to teach students to identify patient problems and plan for their resolution, but is it still useful? We combined a review of the literature with an informal survey of BSN nursing students to examine the usefulness of the nursing process from three perspectives: as a problem-solving tool, as a means of fostering the art and creativity of nursing, and as a method of individualizing patient care. Current nursing literature and students' comments about the nursing process suggest that this approach may no longer be realistic or germane to current practice needs.