The Importance Of Nursing Assessments

Throughout the essay, the author has carried out a holistic assessment of the patient including objective and subjective data which allowed for the formation of actual and potential nursing diagnoses. Upon identifying all actual and potential nursing diagnoses, the author then identified the priority nursing diagnosis for John. Watkins et al (2015) found that carrying out nursing assessments can improve patient safety as they provide an early recognition of patient deterioration which leads to timely treatment e.g. frequently assessing vital signs, as appropriate, can allow the nurse to provide appropriate nursing interventions in response to abnormal vital signs. Providing preventative and timely care allows the nurse to provide nursing interventions

It provides the basis for selecting and implementing nursing interventions. Accurate nursing diagnoses can improve the quality of nursing interventions and lead to better nursing care being provided to the patient (Kurashima et al, 2008). A thorough analysis of the collected data is required in order to make an appropriate nursing diagnosis. Determining the priority of each nursing diagnosis requires clinical reasoning and applied knowledge. The nurse along with other members of the healthcare team then determines the urgency of the nursing diagnoses identified and prioritises care as appropriate. They should initially be prioritised by immediate needs of airway, breathing and circulation (Ackley and Ladwig, 2014). All of John’s actual and potential nursing diagnoses were identified by the author. The author then prioritised John’s care and determined a priority diagnosis of ‘ineffective breathing pattern related to effects of anaesthesia’. This priority diagnosis was appropriate as it followed the theory of prioritising the immediate needs of airway, breathing and circulation. Although other nursing diagnoses were identified for John, they were not compromising his activities of daily living. The author therefore made the correct choice to plan care and provide nursing interventions based on John’s ineffective breathing

It should occur throughout the nursing process as well as at the end. It allows the nurse to evaluate the patient’s response to the nursing interventions that were provided and the progress the patient is making with their treatment. The nurse can then plan further care based on what worked well and what didn’t work for this patient (Ackley and Ladwig, 2014). The nurse evaluated the care that was provided to John. The goal was not met entirely and as a result the care plan was revised by the nurse. This allowed the nurse to discover what nursing interventions were not effective and why. Some of the nursing interventions that were implemented were ineffective because of the patient’s altered conscious level due to the effects of the anaesthetic. The nurse then had the ability to revise the plan and make changes based on the information collected from the evaluation. The evaluation of the nursing care plan was therefore beneficial not only to the nurse but to the patient and other members of the multidisciplinary team. John benefitted from the evaluation as his care was now being adapted to suit his new needs that had arisen from both failure and success of the nursing