How Important Are Vital Signs?

The most important measurements obtained by a nurse are temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. These are very important to the nurse because they let the nurse know how effective the respiratory and endocrine systems are working. It is the nurse’s responsibility to obtain these regularly and to note any changes to a doctor or other healthcare provider. So to answer the question how important is vital signs? The answer is obviously very important.
Many other factors can affect a patient’s vital signs. These include temperature of the environment, the patient’s physical state, illness, and pain. These can all lead to alteration is a patient’s vital signs. Assessment of these vital signs allows the nurse to come up with a diagnosis or intervention to change vital signs back to regular values.
After the nurse has completing an intervention to bring the patient back to their given values it is up to the nurse to monitor the patient’s response to the intervention. Vital signs are so important to nurse’s because they provide the first signs for many fatal health complications such as a heart attack. In this care a nurse may notice an increase in pulse, heart rate and blood pressure and allow for a longer reaction time to carry out the correct medical treatment to prevent the heart attack.
The above is just a short answer to why Vital Signs are so important to nursing. In the grand view of things, Vital Signs are like the ABC’s of nursing.