Final answer:
The nurse and patient working together to determine the patient's health goals is the action that best demonstrates patient-centered care, respecting the principles of autonomy and beneficence.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks which action of the nurse demonstrates patient-centered care. In patient-centered care, the focus is on respecting the patient's preferences, needs, and values, ensuring that they guide all clinical decisions. Among the provided options, the action that encapsulates this concept most fully is (b) the nurse and patient working together to determine the patient's health goals. This collaborative effort illustrates an approach where the nurse is directly engaging with the patient to align care with the individual's desires and outcomes, a core principle of patient-centered care. Other actions, such as checking for allergies, elevating the head of the bed, or maintaining privacy, while important, do not directly show the collaborative process inherent to patient-centered care.
Patient-centered care is guided by principles such as autonomy and beneficence, meaning that patients have the right to make their own healthcare decisions, and healthcare providers should act in ways that benefit the patients. The provided options reflect a range of practices that support these principles, but option (b) goes to the heart of patient-centered care by actively involving the patient in their own healthcare planning.