Importance of Health Assessment in Nursing Practice

Running Head: Health Assessment 0
Health Assessment for Healthy Society
Student Details
10/19/2018

Health Assessment 1
This essay will be helpful in enhancing my clinical practice as it determines how I
provide support and care needed to the patients. In nursing practice, health assessment plays a
vital role. For quality nursing intervention and care, essential health assessment is required
(Aizu, et al., 2015). The purpose of this essay is to provide proper guidance and knowledge
that is needed for a nurse to provide diagnosis and care needed for the patients (Bricks, Cant,
James, Chung, & Davis, 2013). This essay will cover definition, important components and
the purpose of health assessment from a perspective of a nurse. In addition, this essay will
provide how health assessment would be conducted by considering two examples in two
different set ups. The first setup consider a child in a community setting who is ant able to
communicate, so how a nurse will conduct a health assessment in this case. Second setup
considers an elderly person in an aged care facility who can tell about his medical conditions
by his own.
In nursing, health assessment is defined as an interactive, meditative and logical
process by which information regarding patient’s health is collected and synthesised (Fulton,
Lyon, & Goudreau, 2014). It is the first step to determine the problem of patient. Physical
examination is conducted to assess patient’s health. Health assessment determines the needs
of the patient and how those needs would be fulfilled by providing proper nursing facility and
healthcare system. Health assessment defines the health status of the patient by conducting a
physical exam (TheRoyalChildren'sHospitalMelbourne, 2017). Different health assessments
involve initial assessment which identify the type of problem and then prepare a procedure
for the different assessment stages. Focussed assessment is elaborating and treating the
problem. Time-lapsed assessment ensures that the condition of patient is improving and he is
recovering from his suffering. Emergency assessments are related with in determining the
root cause of the problem and providing immediate support of airway, breathing and
circulation to the patient (McGuffin, 2017).

Health Assessment 2
Health assessment has two main components; these include physical assessment and
health history. Further, physical assessment is categorised in three different categories.
Within first category, full body is examined to carry out complete assessment. Second
category includes the examination of a certain part of body to determine the problem within a
specific part of the body (Fulton, Lyon, & Goudreau, 2014). Third category includes the
examination of the body system. This assessment involves, in contrast to complete
assessment and assessment of a part, assessment of a system of the body such as nervous
system or cardiovascular system. Physical examination is carried out to determine the basic
data which is further used to outline the patient’s medical history and the basis of diagnosis
(Peter, 2015). On the other hand, health history of a person determines the health record of
the patient as well as the health record of the family of the patient. By this a nurse would be
able to know that the whether client’s present medical condition has any link with his or the
family’s health history (Peter, 2015).
Health assessment is very important from the nursing point of view. It plays vital role
in nursing. There is several purpose of carrying health assessment (Weber & Kelley, 2013).
First, it makes nurse to collect and maintain a data base of the client’s condition. When a
patient visits a hospital, nurses are there to assist them. Nurses determine the medical
conditions of the patient and collect the important information regarding those conditions.
Information collected from the client is recorded and then analysed to provide the kind of
medication needed to treat the client. It is done to determine the overall functioning of the
client. The information collected from the client is used to establish the clinical judgements
that need to provide to the patient (Habich & Letizia, 2015).
Health assessment tells about the weaknesses and the strengths of the patients to the
nurse. It enables the nurses to know about the patients’ ability to do or not to do something. It
helps the nurses in determining the type of intervention and care that should be provided to