A finished NSG-320 Topic 6 perioperative care plan for a composite knee replacement patient, covering all three phases and documenting what information must cross each handover. Searches like "nsg 320 topic 6 assignment example", "nsg320 topic 6 sample" and "nsg-320 topic 6 example" land here.
What a finished NSG-320 Topic 6 perioperative care plan looks like
Three phase blocks make up the finished plan, with a handover box between each pair. The preoperative block covers verification that consent is documented, fasting status, which home medications the orders hold, a baseline assessment including circulation and sensation in both legs, and teaching on incentive spirometry and early mobility. The intraoperative block is shorter and describes the surgical safety checklist and time-out, positioning and skin protection, warming, and infection prevention, framed as what a student observes. The postoperative block ranks priorities: airway and sedation first, then pain, neurovascular checks on the operated leg, prevention of venous thromboembolism as ordered, early mobility and signs of infection. Each handover box lists the information that must travel, such as the baseline leg findings the recovery nurse needs for comparison. Rationales are cited throughout.
How an NSG-320 Topic 6 example is structured
The plan follows the patient through the phases in order. A short case summary opens it with only the history that shapes perioperative risk, including age, mobility and a home anticoagulant. The preoperative section uses the familiar layout of problems, goals, interventions and rationales, and ends with a handover box. The intraoperative section keeps that layout but is framed around safety events rather than nursing diagnoses, since the student's role there is largely observation. A second handover box follows. The postoperative section runs longest, with priorities ranked and the basis for the ranking stated in a sentence. Each handover box has the same three rows: what is passed on, who receives it and what goes wrong if it is lost. The conclusion picks out the handover the writer considers riskiest for this patient and explains the choice.
Three phases, one patient throughout
The same composite older adult carries every section, so risks identified before surgery can be followed into recovery rather than restarted in each phase.
Handover boxes between the phases
Each transition gets a short table of what must travel, who receives it and the consequence of losing it, so the transfer of information is visible.
Baseline circulation checked before surgery
Pulses, color, warmth and sensation in both legs are recorded preoperatively, because a postoperative neurovascular check means little without a comparison.
Intraoperative safety framed as observed
The time-out, positioning and warming are described as what a student would see and understand, rather than as care the student delivers.
Postoperative priorities ranked with a basis
Airway and sedation come first, then pain, circulation, clot prevention and mobility, with the order defended by which threat would develop fastest.
Where marks go in NSG-320 Topic 6
Perioperative plans give up the most ground when a phase goes missing. A strong postoperative section attached to a single line about the operating room covers a third of what the prompt described, and the rubric usually scores each phase. Handovers left implicit are the second loss, since the plan then cannot show what the recovery nurse needs from the preoperative assessment. Writers also drop marks by listing postoperative interventions without ranking them, which hides whether airway is understood to come before pain. A neurovascular check with no baseline to compare against is a reasoning gap graders notice. Home anticoagulants that the plan never mentions are a safety omission. The plans graded highest trace a single piece of information, such as the preoperative leg assessment, from the first phase to the last.
Get an NSG-320 Topic 6 example written to your instructions
Send the NSG-320 Topic 6 instructions, rubric and care plan template your section uses. We write a custom example to them, carrying a composite surgical patient through every phase with the handovers shown, and return it in 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Care plans for your own clinical patients remain yours to write.
NSG-320 Topic 6 questions, answered
How much should the intraoperative section contain?
Enough to show the phase was understood, even though a student's role in the operating room is mostly observation. The surgical safety checklist, the time-out, positioning, skin protection, warming and infection prevention usually cover it. Frame it as what happens and why rather than as care you would deliver. Check your rubric, since some sections weight the three phases equally.
Why does the plan focus on handovers?
Because responsibility changes hands twice, from the preoperative nurse to the operating team and from the operating team to recovery, and each change is a chance for a finding or an order to drop out. A plan that shows what must travel at each transition demonstrates an understanding of perioperative risk that three separate phase plans cannot, which is why the example gives each handover its own box.
Can I use a surgery I observed in clinical?
Your instructions decide that. Where a real case is permitted, the identifying details have to go, and what you saw firsthand stays your own clinical material to write up. The example is built on a composite patient and a common elective procedure picked because it shows all three phases clearly, and a composite of that kind is usually simpler to defend than one real admission.