Practice Model
The CSUF SON practice model is grounded in the assumption that nurses practice as members of collaborative teams. The model applies to nursing practice throughout the continuum of care and works to maximize the health of human beings in diverse communities. It also applies to practice where nurses manage the care of individuals and their families within complex environments of hospitals and other health care systems.
In the center of the SON Conceptual Model is the practice model (see Figure 1 below). The inner circle depicts the key elements of care, the population base (individual/family, community, systems/organizations), which are interrelated. The model is aimed at enhancing understanding nursing’s focus and the process by which nurses evaluate health indicators to develop or use interventions that can maximize health. Nurses are integral members of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, providing a broad approach to patient care and community problems.
Processes of assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification, planning, interventions, and evaluation – when systematically applied – facilitate the use of the nursing process at all levels of practice. Thus, the three central interwoven circles show the levels of population-based practice. Systems, community, and individual/family are nested within population-based care that is compassionate and evidence-based, which is applied at all points of the nursing process. The ultimate goal of nursing care is healthy people in healthy communities. For individual patients, success is measured by improvement in or maintenance of health; for the community, success is measured by improvement in overall community health and quality of life indicators. Focusing on these goals and evaluating patient and community outcomes completes the nursing process and allows modification of the plan of care as needed.
