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Understanding Nursing Assessment
Patients with critical illnesses, chronic ailments or undergoing treatment after a serious accident etc. need prolonged treatment in a hospital environment. Nursing assessment is part of a medical procedure to understand the health status of patients from a series of subjective and objective data. Nursing assessment in fact will be the primary exercise ahead of a medical assessment to set out a comprehensive treatment plan.
Subjective data in this instance includes several factors like thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, pre-existing ailments, general history of health and similar details. Objective data is obtained through clinical examination, physical examination, diagnostic tests, and other inputs derived from modern day medical equipments like CT scans, cardiograms, color Doppler and the like. The cumulative data is then used to make a comprehensive assessment for the patient. This initial assessment will be the basis for the medical assessment and the treatment procedure that is prescribed. It is important therefore that the initial assessment is undertaken with great care and attention to the minutest detail. A sloppy assessment on the other hand can prove to be very expensive for the patient and potentially question the integrity of the medical personnel involved.
Nursing assessment is an ongoing process throughout the tenure of the treatment. In some instances, patients may need to continue with this assessment at periodical intervals even after they are discharged from the hospital and are convalescing at home.
Close relatives, members of the family, or at times even close friends can contribute significantly in the process of nursing assessment. This is particularly so when the patient is no more in a state to communicate himself/herself. In such situations it becomes important for the medical personnel to understand a series of health related facts of the patient. In the absence of appropriate and factual inputs the assessment process itself can potentially be compromised leading to more complications. Individual beliefs, faith, likes, dislikes and similar factors play a predominant role in the process of recovery from serious ailments and these factors cannot be extracted through any mechanism other than communication from the patient or those near and dear to him/her.
ursing assessment employs a series of tools but effective communication is perhaps the most important tool to provide a competent assessment. The biggest challenge that the medical fraternity faces in this regard is when the patient speaks a language totally different from what the hospital staff speaks. In such situations interpreters when employed should be extremely competent to understand the situation and complement the efforts of the medical personnel. Race, color, variations in culture, gender obsessions are among other factors which can be challenging even with a common language between the patient and the medical team. Interestingly English language itself has its share of variations across the globe and a casual usage in one part of the world can be seriously offending in another part.