Reverse prioritization: A new approach to prioritizing in the classroom

Background

Prioritization is an essential skill for practicing nurses to have. Yet educators struggle to improve students’ development of prioritization before graduation; leaving nursing graduates unprepared to address their patients’ clinical concerns.

Innovation

Introducing an activity in the classroom called knockouts requires students to reverse prioritize four clinical scenarios. Students were asked to knockout the lowest priority until students were left with the highest priority. At each stage, students were asked to justify knocking out the client and had to support their clinical decision, by recognizing cues and interpreting clinical data.

Implications

Students and faculty saw the benefits of reverse prioritization including increasing foundational knowledge, developing clinical judgement, and assessing gaps in knowledge.

Conclusion

Reverse prioritization is a new educational strategy to foster the development of clinical judgement in nursing students. This strategy increases nursing student's ability to correctly prioritize client care by applying didactic content to clinical scenarios.