Experto crede
and further specialist education therefore developing a “higher thought” approach to their care. Within a Critical care setting, a patient’s condition may change rapidly and require instant decisionmaking capabilities. The experienced nurse will gather information through a quick visual of the patient; an “end of bed, head-to-toe assessment”. The nurse will analyse this data recognising a deterioration in the patients’ condition based on “gut instinct” or “intuition” (Benner, 1984). It is at this point that the Nurse will inform the appropriate healthcare colleagues to escalate patient care. “Watching” a patient for signs, whether subtle or more obvious, requires the Nurse to understand the full range of skilled assessment of the patient. As part of the patients journey re-assessment is paramount and designed to continuously “watch” the patient at all times. Nurses gather data quickly; communicate this data effectively, whilst implementing a plan very often dependent on life and death scenarios. Our Nursing Assessment in the MMUH is designed to empower patient engagement in self-care. Patients are encouraged to take an active role in decisions relating to their treatment. Information that is gathered at admission is essential not only to determine, but to guide our patient care and to develop the nurse-patient therapeutic relationship. As nurses, we are very often provided with the most intimate details of a person’s life. With this in mind, using Marjory Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns Framework (Gordon, 1994) supports our new Nursing Assessment. Nurses have felt a greater depth to knowing their patients with narratives including “the assessment is very patient focussed”, “I get to know my patients so much better”, and “it feels more like a conversation than question after question”.
37