In the nursing process, which phase involves planning and prioritizing care based on assessment and diagnoses?

• A. Assessment
• B. Planning
• C. Evaluation
• D. Diagnosis

Answer: (B)

Planning in the nursing process is the stage where you organize care by turning what you found in assessment and the identified nursing diagnoses into a concrete plan. After gathering data and interpreting it into problems, you set patient-centered goals and outcomes and choose specific interventions to achieve them. Prioritizing care happens here by ranking issues from most urgent and safety-critical to those less urgent, ensuring immediate needs are addressed first and resources are allocated effectively. This phase also involves collaborating with the patient and family, setting realistic timelines, and outlining how progress will be measured. The plan then guides implementation and is revisited during evaluation to determine if goals were met and to adjust as needed.