A standard of care for the nursing diagnosis of ineffective airway clearance.

The American Nurses' Association defines nursing as the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual and potential health problems. The process of nursing assessment and diagnosis facilitates the identification of actual and potential health problems and the organization and direction of the planning, implementation, and evaluation of nursing care in striving for optimal patient outcomes. The nursing diagnosis of ineffective airway clearance describes a problem for which many hospitalized patients are at risk because of either acute or chronic illness. Admission to the intensive care unit is often necessary to attain and maintain airway patency, and both autonomous nursing and collaborative interventions are implemented. Standards of nursing care guide professional practice and provide a method of assessing quality of care and achievement of patient outcomes. The standard of care developed for ineffective airway clearance encompasses the areas of etiology, defining characteristics, assessment criteria, process criteria, outcome criteria, and evaluation.