Health Australia Assessment 2022

Health Assessment
1

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Section A: Definition of Health Assessment.........................................................................3
Section B: Purpose of Health assessment..............................................................................4
Section C: Process of Health Assessment..............................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................7
2

Introduction
In the present time, with the increasing number of illness and health issues, it is highly
recommended for an individual to opt for the regular health checkups or assessments in order
to prevent themselves from any severe illness. These checkups highlight the special needs of
the people which need to be addressed by the healthcare systems or the nursing facilities. The
history of the patient as well as the physical analysis of the patient is conducted in order to
assess the health needs. Use of frameworks such as Clinical reasoning cycle or Nursing
process is quite common while conducting these examinations (The Royal Children's
Hospital Melbourne, 2019). This essay will highlight the major aspects of health assessment
with reference to two case studies provided.
Discussion
Section A: Definition of Health Assessment
Health assessment is composed of two major terms, health, which can be defined as the
mental or physical condition of an individual and, assessment, which can be defined as the
examination or analysis. Thus, the combination of these two terms suggests that the health
assessment is the examination of the mental or physical condition of an individual. According
to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), the health assessment of an
individual or patient can be described as the evaluation of the health status of a patient by
performing his/her physical examination after obtaining the health history (AMN Healthcare,
2014). These health assessments serve as a tool for the nurses to obtain the descriptions about
the symptoms of a patient’s health, history of development of these symptoms and carry out
the processes to discover the associated physical findings, which will help in development of
differential diagnoses. However, the nurses need to ensure that “All assessments consider the
3