High Acuity Specialty Nursing Theory 1 NSHA 7100

As a healthcare practitioner, you are expected to follow professional standards of practice throughout all Specialty Nursing programs and courses. In this course, you will have opportunities to use the processes of critical thinking, systematic inquiry, communication, collaboration, leadership, professionalism, and clinical decision-making.

Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to:

• Differentiate high-acuity nursing from current nursing practice with respect to the nurse’s role, clinical context, nature of illness and the lived experience of persons receiving care.
• Formulate conclusions for the oxygen supply and demand determinants and end-organ perfusion using the oxygen supply and demand theory.
• Perform a comprehensive assessment to establish appropriate interventions for persons in high-acuity care.
• Analyze applicable assessment cues to form judgments regarding actual and potential problems for patients within the context of high acuity.
• Apply the situated clinical decision-making framework to prioritize evidence-informed interventions for individuals with complex, acute illness.
• Advocate for appropriate patient interventions by integrating multiple sources of nursing knowledge.
• Interpret arterial blood gases to establish patient status and evaluate high acuity interventions.
• Formulate accurate conclusions about oxygen supply and demand to manage advanced interventions in the context of complex, acute respiratory illness.

Effective as of Spring/Summer 2026