After assessing a patient, a nurse develops a standard formal nursing diagnosis. What is the rationale for the nurse's actions?

A) To form a language that can be encoded only by nurses
B) To distinguish the nurse's role from the physician's role
C) To develop clinical judgment based on other's intuition
D) To help nurses focus on the scope of medical practice

The standard formal nursing diagnosis serves several purposes. Nursing diagnoses distinguish the nurse's role from that of the physician/health care provider and help nurses focus on the scope of nursing practice (not medical) while fostering the development of nursing knowledge. A nursing diagnosis provides the precise definition that gives all members of the health care team a common language for understanding the patient's needs. A diagnosis is a clinical judgment based on information.