The Importance Of Nursing Standards Of Practice

A standard of practice is defined as a set of minimum practice requirements to be met by the professional nurses to protect the patient from injury (Texas Board of Nursing, 2014). Standards of practice were established to assist professional nurses to maintain patient safety and clinical competency. Nurses are held responsible if they fail to meet the minimum acceptable requirements as required by the BON (Davis, 2014). The three identified standards that guide my nursing practice are:

1) Understanding and adhering to the Texas nursing practice act (NPA) and the board of nursing rules

This standard is very important because the NPA describes what skills and tasks nurses can and cannot perform in accordance with the BON and federal rules.

Therefore, nurses must be knowledgeable about other cultural diversities. All patients must be cared for and treated with dignity, respect, and compassion regardless of their age, gender, origin, religion, sexual orientation, and background. Nurses must be culturally sensitive and must have the ability to provide nursing care to patients without judging them. Also, they must respect and support patient values and beliefs. In addition, nurses must not refuse to provide care to the patient because of their personal values and beliefs (Westrisk,

Also, it is the nurses’ duty to update their knowledge and skills in order to improve competency and to achieve the outstanding level of practice. The patient level of acuity varies, therefore; the appropriate care management would depend on the nurse’s competence and knowledge to effectively care for high acute patients. Nursing is a lifelong learning profession because not every patient has the same diagnosis, medical history, and health issues. Therefore, nurses are encouraged to expand and enhance their clinical skills, critical thinking abilities, and educational knowledge by taking continuing nursing education classes as required by the BON or seeking for higher education for personal