LibGuides: Reference Tips for Librarians Helping Health Science Students: Care Plans

What is a Care Plan?

A care plan is a document used in healthcare (in our context, usually, but not always, in nursing) to document the care of a patient. It usually contains information related to initial patient health assessment, goals, nursing interventions, and evaluation of care.

Catalog Searching

We have many books and e-books related to care plans in the ACC libraries. Search terms to try:

Be sure to limit to e-books in the results if you need information right away, and it's always a good idea to sort by date to get the newest examples.

Sample Care Plans

Some of our subscription services have sample care plans in them:

Nursing Reference Center Plus
Scroll down on the left and click the link for Care Plans. There are 50 sample plans available as of April 2020.

Evidence-based information resource including videos, images, and care sheets designed specifically for nurses.
Nursing Books @ OVID
Of course, all the titles on this platform appear in the catalog, but searching within the platform site allows for searching the contents across all titles at the same time. Some titles within this platform have sample plans -- and, they don't have limited viewership.

Online collection of biomedical and nursing e-books.
CINAHL Complete
1) On the main search page, click the link for Evidence Based Care sheets. These are not the same as care plans, but some of the information they provide may be used in a care plan, especially listing evidence sources and providing patient education.

2) On the main search page, scroll down to the Publication Type limiter box and choose Care Plans. This will limit to articles that contain care plans or information useful to creating them (over 1400 as of April 2020)

Articles, books, dissertations, proceedings, newsletters, standards of practice, government publications, research instruments and patient education material.