#nursing assessment checklist

[sahmirqlilln]

Nursing Entrance Exam Questions and Answers - In this article, we will provide you with nursing entrance exam questions and answers that will help you prepare for the exam.

[jamshetpuci]

Nursing Test Questions and Answers Tool: The Ultimate Guide - Do you struggle to find the right resources to prepare for your exams? Look no further, as this guide will introduce you to the ultimate nursing test questions and answers tool that will help you excel in your nursing career.

[daissyjarness]

https://yourhealthmagazine.net/article/healthcare-careers/nursing-test-questions-and-answers-tool-the-ultimate-guide/

Nursing Test Questions and Answers Tool: The Ultimate Guide - Do you struggle to find the right resources to prepare for your exams? Look no further, as this guide will introduce you to the ultimate nursing test questions and answers tool that will help you excel in your nursing career.

[ashersamuel]

Nursing Assessment Software: The Future of Patient Care - We will explore the benefits of nursing assessment software, discuss the features to look for when selecting a program, and examine the future of this technology

[dacotahedfia]

Nursing Assessment Software: The Future of Patient Care - We will explore the benefits of nursing assessment software, discuss the features to look for when selecting a program, and examine the future of this technology

[nickielclaireo]

Nursing Assessment Software: The Future of Patient Care - We will explore the benefits of nursing assessment software, discuss the features to look for when selecting a program, and examine the future of this technology

[gatheringbones]

[“As computer programs determine how many patients can be profitably squeezed into a day, doctors become tools. Then the actual machines march triumphantly into the wards.

Nurses are now separated from patients by computers on wheels that roll everywhere with them: their bossy robot taskmasters. When you first see a nurse, she or he will likely have eyes on the screen rather than on you. This has dreadful consequences for your treatment, since you become a checklist rather than a person. If you are having a problem unrelated to what is on the screen, some nurses will have a hard time gathering themselves and paying attention. For example, after my first liver procedure my liver drain was improperly attached. This was a serious problem that was easily reparable. Yet although I tried for four days to draw attention to it, I could not get through. It was not on the lists. And so I had a second liver procedure.

When I read my own medical record, I was struck by how often doctors wrote what was convenient rather than what was true. It’s hard to blame them: they are locked in a terrible record-keeping system that sucks away their time and our money. When doctors enter their records, their hands are guided by the possible entries in the digital system, which are arranged to maximize revenue. The electronic medical record offers none of the research benefits that we might expect from its name; it is electronic in the same sense that a credit card reader or an ATM is electronic. It is of little help in assembling data that might be useful for doctors and patients.

During the coronavirus pandemic, doctors could not use it to communicate about symptoms and treatments. As one doctor explained, “Notes are used to bill, determine level of service, and document it rather than their intended purpose, which was to convey our observations, assessment, and plan. Our important work has been co-opted by billing.” Doctors hate all of this.

Doctors of an older generation say that things were better in their time—and, what is more worthy of note, younger doctors agree with them. Doctors feel crushed by their many masters and miss the authority that they used to enjoy, or that they anticipated that they would enjoy when they decided to go to medical school. Young people go to medical school for good reasons, then find their sense of mission exploited by their bosses. Pressured to see as many patients as possible, they come to feel like cogs in a machine. Hassled constantly by companies that seek to pry open every aspect of medical practice for profit, they find it hard to remember the nobility of their calling. Tormented by electronic records that take as much time as patient care, and tortured by mandatory cell phones that draw them away from thinking, they lose their ability to concentrate and communicate. When doctors are disempowered, we do not learn what we need to be healthy and free.”]

timothy snyder, from our malady: lessons in liberty from a hospital diary, 2020

[pulisicsgirl]

flustered assessments - christian pulisic

summary: Y/N is a nursing student struggling to study for an assignment and Christian offers to help out by letting her do an assessment on him; super fluffy, established relationship

pairing: Christian Pulisic x nursing student!reader

word count: 2.4k

notes: this is the first fic that I'm posting on here!!! :) this fic is entirely self-indulgent and I wrote it during finals week last semester, so it might be super niche, but I still thought it was cute so and figured I would share it. please tell me what you think!

You held your head in your hands as you hunched over the desk, all your work laid out before you. Your mind seemed to spin as you tried to take in and retain all of the information written in your notebook and printed on the sheets of paper before you. You were preparing to head into final exam week as a junior-year nursing student, and you were due to perform a graded head-to-toe assessment the following morning. Nerves wracked your body as you tried to go through the checklist you had to complete (from memory). You wiggled your fingers as you read through your notes, trying to dispel some of the anxiety you were feeling.

You felt a light pressure on your back and a kiss was placed on your neck, just below your ear, as Christian leaned his body over you and wrapped his arms around your torso.

He had come over earlier that night so the two of you could try to spend some of his very limited time off together, but when he realized how much work you had piling up before exams and how stressed you were about studying, he immediately shifted gears, encouraging you to do whatever work you needed to and doing his best not to distract you. It meant a lot to you that he recognized how important your studies were to you, and that he didn’t try to convince you to spend time with him instead. You had wanted nothing more than to spend the evening wrapped in his arms under a blanket on the couch, watching a movie until you drifted into a peaceful sleep—honestly. But with so many tests looming in your near future, you knew you wouldn’t be able to relax and focus on spending time with him—and he realized that too. So for the last few hours, he has wandered in periodically, ensuring that you had snacks and took breaks every so often. He talked you down from your anxious thoughts, reassuring you that you were capable of the things that you had set out to do.

“Hey, baby. Just checking in,” he said, almost at a whisper. “How are things going?”

You sighed softly, subtly leaning back into his chest and groaning in frustration. “I feel so overwhelmed,” you whined, rubbing the palms of your hands in your eyes. “I feel like I’m just reading the same information over and over again and not retaining anything.” Christian stood up straight, using his fingers to gently massage your shoulders as you tilted your head back to look at him. His faced held a sympathetic look as he stared back down at you.

He thought for a moment. “What are you working on right now?”

“I’m trying to prepare for the head-to-toe assessment I have to do in the morning,” you gestured to the equipment you had laid out on the desk. Your stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and pen light, among other tools, lay unused on the surface.

“Would it help if you actually went through the assessment instead of just reading about it?” he asked softly.

You pondered his words for a brief moment. “Yeah, actually,” you looked back up at him. “It might.”

A grin broke out on his face, accentuating the soft dimples in his cheeks. “You could do it on me!” he replied with excitement. He had always loved seeing you practice any of your nursing skills. He often made remarks about how you were his “smartie pants” that was going to save lives one day, and it warmed your heart each time. Any time he would feel an ache or pain, he would come to you to ask what was wrong, and whether you had the answer or not, you knew that he secretly just loved when you would dote on him and try to take care of him.

“Really? Are you sure?” you asked. He just nodded, bouncing lightly on his toes in excitement.

“Where do you want me?” he asked with a grin. You told him to go sit on the bed while you grabbed your tools and a couple sheets of paper. You placed them on the bedside table and tried to mentally prepare yourself to do the assessment.

“Okay, so…” you looked up at Christian’s face which only held a small, eager, and supportive smile. He was sitting up at the top of the bed with his back against the headboard. In an instant, you felt a wave of anxiety as you thought about how unprepared you felt for this assignment. You pulled on the fingers of your right hand, a habit that you often did when you were nervous.

Christian picked up on this, leaning forward to grab your hands with his own. “Hey, baby. Relax,” he spoke softly, as though you were a small, scared woodland animal that he was doing his best not to spook. He gently pulled you forward, uttering a soft, “c’mere” as he pulled you to sit on his lap, with your legs on the outside of his so you were straddling him. He placed both of his hands on your cheeks, looking intently into your eyes. “It’s just me and you here. You can do this. And you can run through it as many times as you need to tonight. I’ll be right here.” His thumb stroked your cheek gently. “Okay?” You felt butterflies in your stomach at his words as you nodded and glanced down. Even after as long as you had been together, he never failed to get you flustered.

You took a deep breath, trying to center yourself and focus on his encouragement, and he moved his hands from your face, settling them on your hips. You decided to just stay where you were to do the assessment—it wasn’t the most conventional way to assess a patient by any means, but you felt better when you were close to him. You leaned over to the bedside table, grabbing your notebook and a pen so you could jot down notes as you went.

“Okay,” you paused, collecting yourself. “Hi, my name is Y/N, and I’m going to be your nurse today.” You glanced up to Christian’s face, feeling almost giddy at the amused look on it. “I need to do a head-to-toe assessment on you, is that okay?” You mentally went through the elements of the introduction that you needed to fulfill, checking each one off in your head as you went.

Christian replied with a “yes, ma’am,” and a short nod.

“Okay, can I get your name and date of birth?”

“Christian Pulisic. September 18, 1998.” You had already begun writing down the answer before he started speaking, already sure of his answer.

“Do you know what day of the week it is?”

“It’s a beautiful Thursday evening.”

You giggled at his response, feeling a little more anxiety flutter away. “Do you know where you are?”

“Your apartment?” he questioned, not exactly sure how he was supposed to answer. You just nodded to show that he was fine.

“Alright, and do you know why you’re here?”

“To help my beautiful, genius girlfriend study for her exams so that she can ace this tomorrow and go on to become the most brilliant and talented nurse this world has ever seen.” You felt the heat rush into your cheeks at his response. You looked up to his face and found an earnest honesty in his eyes as he grinned at you. You shook your head with a laugh, turning back to your notes.

“Are you in any pain?”

“No.”

You began taking his vital signs, pretending to take his temperature and oxygen saturation since you didn’t have the equipment to do those. You took his blood pressure and counted his pulse and respirations, noting them on your paper.

“Everything normal?” he asks.

“For the most part,” you smiled. “Your heart rate is kind of fast, but I usually don’t take my patient’s pulse while I’m sitting in their lap, so that could have something to do with it.” He smiled sheepishly, dropping his chin to his chest as he laughed at himself. “And your blood pressure is just a hair high, but with as active as you are and how well you eat, I wouldn’t worry about it. It probably just has to do with the heart rate thing, too.”

You continued assessing him to the best of your ability, asking him questions about how he had been feeling and checking his eye movement with your pen light. Christian continued trying to make you laugh as he followed all of your directions. When you asked him to puff out his cheeks to test one of the cranial nerves, he crossed his eyes, acting as goofy as he could.

You began asking him questions related to his heart, asking if he had experienced any chest pains or dizziness. You put your stethoscope in your ears and, as you did so, Christian leaned forward off of the headboard, pulling his shirt over his head quickly, and discarding it on the floor. You felt the heat flooding your face once again as you studied his bare abdomen.

“Like what you see, Nurse Y/N?” he wiggled his eyebrows as he spoke.

You rolled your eyes, laughing anyway. “Just shut up and lean back,” you giggled, pushing his chest. You placed the stethoscope to his skin, listening to the soft lub-dub, lub-dub of his heartbeat, a soft smile passing over your face. It was one of your favorite sounds—his heartbeat. It was a comforting sound, knowing he was alive and well. You had fallen asleep many times, head pressed to his chest as the steady rhythm lulled you to sleep.

You jotted down some more notes as you took the stethoscope out of your ears, turning back to look at him. “Do you have any history of smoking?” you asked with a smile, as you already knew the answer.

“No,” he smiled.

“Alright, have you experienced any coughing recently? Any difficulty or pain with breathing? Any shortness of breath?”

“Well… a little bit,” he pondered, tapping his finger to his chin. You quirked your head to the side, raising an eyebrow at him in question. Why hadn’t he mentioned to you that he was having trouble breathing recently? A thousand possibilities ran through your head in an instant.

“Well, you know… because you took my breath away,” he raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘that one was pretty good, huh?’.

 You just grabbed your notebook, writing in it once more. “Patient… thinks… he’s smooth,” you spoke slowly as if you were writing the words in your notes.

“Heyyyy,” he groaned and both of you laughed.

You continued working through the list of what you needed to do, checking off each item, one by one. As you were working through the neuro section, Christian moved his hands from your hips, down to settle on your thighs, where he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over the exposed skin just below the hem of your shorts.

“Have you, um… h-have,” your breath caught in your throat, suddenly feeling flustered at the soft touch of his fingers. You swallowed hard, attempting to pull yourself together and promptly failing. You dropped your hands into your lap in defeat, letting out a heavy sigh. “You have to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” He wore a sly grin on his face.

“You know what you’re doing,” you groaned.

He laughed at your desperation. “Come on, if you can do it in these circumstances, you can do it in any setting,” he retorted, raising his eyebrows at you. As much as you may not like it, he was probably right.

You sighed again, stretching out your back and shaking your head to try to refocus yourself.

Soon enough, you had finished your checklist, looking through your notes to ensure you hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Alright, I think that’s everything,” you smiled at him. “I diagnose you as… alive.”

“Oh, good. I was worried,” he said in an amused tone, squeezing your thigh. “Alright,” he took the checklist from your hands. “Run me through everything you would do for an assessment, and I’ll check you.”

You took a deep breath, pulling at your fingers again. One of his hand resumed it’s position on your thigh. “Okay I start by introducing myself, I get two patient identifiers and assess for alertness and orientation. Then I’ll take temperature, pulses, respirations…”

You continued listing everything you could remember, running through the assessment in order in your head.

When you reached the end, Christian beamed at you, setting the sheet of paper on the bed beside you. “You aced it. Every last thing on that list—you got it.”

“Really?”

“Every. Last. One.” He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “I’m so proud of you.” Your heart fluttered in your chest as you closed your eyes, leaning your head onto his shoulder. He ran his fingers gently over your back, tracing patterns into your spine. “You’ve been studying for hours now, and you’ve got this material down. Do you feel comfortable calling it a night? We can run through it again a couple times in the morning before you actually head in to do it.”

You smiled to yourself at his supportive and caring words. You nodded, head still on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around your torso, scooting down the bed so that he could lay down, pulling you to lay on his chest. You instantly melted into him, feeling the ache in your shoulders and back as you finally relaxed.

In a matter of minutes, you felt your eyelids begin to droop as Christian continued rubbing your back slowly.

“Thank you for helping me study,” you spoke slowly, sleep already threatening to take you. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend much time together tonight.”

“It’s okay, baby. Next week, after you crush your finals, I’ll take you out and we can spend all the time in the world together then.”

That simple statement made you smile, giving you something to look forward to after a long week of exams.

And sure enough, Christian was right. After a night of peaceful rest in his arms, the two of you ran through the material a couple more times the next morning, and then, after you had donned your scrubs (earning several cheeky remarks from Christian about how hot you looked in them) you headed into the lab to do the assessment with your instructor and passed it with flying colors.

[macgyvermedical]

I have a character who gets shot in the side and her friends sensibly realize she will die without actual surgery. Unfortunately there are also people who still want to kill her, so staying put in a public place isn't ideal. How do I determine how long she absolutely positively must stay in the hospital? And what are the risks of leaving early?

The reason hospitals exist is because there are many situations in which a person doesn't have the skill, equipment, and/or ability to take care of themself at home.

Maybe the person can't keep anything down and needs IV fluid to stay hydrated. Maybe they have altered mental status for some reason and can't keep themself safe. Maybe they need assessments for changes to their status around the clock. Maybe they need a medication that is dosed based on an assessment that they can't do themself. Maybe they need a treatment or medication that is too dangerous or side effect prone to give outpatient.

Any of these, among many others, are reasons people might have to stay in a hospital.

For surgery/trauma specifically, a pretty standard checklist has to be met for someone to go home. They have to:

Be able to hold down fluids (with oral anti-nausea medication if necessary)

Have tolerable pain with oral pain medication

Be back to (or very close to) their baseline mental status

Be able to pass gas

Be able to urinate

Finish their course of IV antibiotics (in the case of trauma or an intestinal surgery)

Be able to understand and follow their care plan at home (when to take meds, how to change dressings, when to come back for follow ups, when/how they can bathe, etc...)

Once these are all met, the person can generally go home safely. For some people and surgeries, this takes a few hours, for others this takes weeks or even months. Some people may even need to go to a rehab center or a skilled nursing facility before they can go home safely (especially if they can do everything but the last one).

Someone who is shot in the side and needs surgery likely had the bullet penetrate their peritoneum- the sac that holds their abdominal organs. This probably injured some intestine, which means she will need IV antibiotics and runs the risk of part of the bowel dying or failing to work as it should after the surgery.

If she was really proactive and there were no complications*, she could probably meet everything but the antibiotic requirement within 24 hours.

Now, after 24 hours, even if she'd met all the requirements except the IV antibiotics, she'd still have to leave against medical advice, or "AMA". This means that the best course of treatment, the IV antibiotics, has to take place in the hospital, and she would run the risk of complications (peritonitis) by skipping out before they were done. If she could convince the doctors to give her oral antibiotics**, she might even be able to leave without the high risk of peritonitis that comes with bowel surgery.

Speaking of complications, the main complications would be dead bowel (which would cause a lack of bowel movement/passing of gas, and vomiting), and peritonitis. For either of these, she would have to come back to the hospital and spend possibly a week or more with an NG tube or more IV antibiotics.

*This is something that would require her to start working on her checklist the second she got up to the floor. Trying to pee, being really aware of when she passed gas, drinking clear liquids like it was her job the second she was allowed, refusing IV meds if there was any other option, etc... It would not be fun or comfortable, and this assumes of course there are no complications.

**This is something that is surprisingly difficult to convince doctors to do. I have had many, many times when a patient is either refusing IV access, we can't get an IV in them to literally save their life, or the patient is leaving AMA and still needs antibiotics, and even so no one will change the IV antibiotics to oral or IM. If you are a pharmacist or a hospitalist I would love to hear reasons and if there are some magic words I can say to get alternative antibiotics for my patients.

[freshrn]

[Encore] The Ultimate Guide to Nursing Communication: A Mega Compilation

Previously, Kati had a series of episodes on nursing communication. This mega dose combines all episodes into one for easy listening! The topics include:

How to talk to your nursing colleagues, CNAs, and medical unit receptionists and deal with things like how to navigate when your urgency level changes or challenges in working together

Learning what everyone on the healthcare team actually wants to know when they want an update (PT, OT, ST, Case Management, Social Work, medical team, and more)

Cool vs. not cool ways to handle things 

Simple things you can do and say to look and feel more comfortable as the patient’s nurse

Tips on delivering tough news and how to be in those big moments while holding it together and being a strong but caring presence for your patient

How to engage with your own family and loved ones who might not understand all that you go through at a normal day of work

These episodes were originally recorded in 2021 and are still very relevant for today’s new nurse. 

For ALL of our new nurse content:https://www.freshrn.com/new-grad-nursing/ 

For a free mini-course on report tips for new nurses (including my fave report sheet), click here: https://courses.freshrn.com/p/med-surg-report-basics

To learn more about our comprehensive med-surg crash course, Med-Surg Mindset, click here: https://courses.freshrn.com/p/med-surg-mindset

For my free cardiac assessment checklist, click here: https://bit.ly/4aV6RTO

For my most-used medical abbreviations, click here: https://bit.ly/44mnTri

Learn more about the FreshRN All-Access Pass here - https://courses.freshrn.com/p/membership

To see our latest course catalog (med-surg, ICU, precepting, charge nurse, ortho, cardiac, neuro courses and more), click here: https://courses.freshrn.com/

Get weekly tips, encouragement, stories from the bedside, and more - just for nursing students and new nurses at: https://www.freshrn.com/email-sign-up/ 

Connect With Me Online!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshRN

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kati_Kleber

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Fresh_RN/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kati_kleber/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freshrn

Music credit: Keep My Cool by Benj Heard

  Check out this episode!

[dyanlmarito]

Nursing Test Questions and Answers Tool: The Ultimate Guide - Do you struggle to find the right resources to prepare for your exams? Look no further, as this guide will introduce you to the ultimate nursing test questions and answers tool that will help you excel in your nursing career.

[jamshetpuci]

Nursing Assessment Software - We will explore what nursing assessment software is, how it works, its benefits, and how it has impacted the healthcare industry.

[daissyjarness]

Nursing Assessment Software - We will explore what nursing assessment software is, how it works, its benefits, and how it has impacted the healthcare industry.

[ashersamuel]

Nursing Skills Assessment: Importance, Types, and Process - In this article, we will discuss the importance of nursing skills assessment, its different types, and the process involved in conducting an assessment.