Today, Nursing is considered as a scientific healthcare profession that holds a patient health care journey. They are responsible to ensure accurate diagnoses and provide public education about critical health issues. Due to wide-ranging specialism in nursing profession, every nurse has particular expertise, skills and strength. Though, nursing has amalgamating ethos. They just don’t consider test result when assessing a patient, but the critical thinking demonstrated by nurses’ use their judgment to incorporate objective data with experience (subjective) of a patient’s behavioral, biological and physical needs. Earlier, nursing was just offered as a vocational course but with higher demand in medical industries, it has become a full-fledged profession.
Despite the specialism, every nurse uses a nursing process that is same across all; a scientific method which is particularly designed to provide the best patient care in five steps:
- Step 1: Assessment – It is the initial step where nurses assess patients on social, physiological, lifestyle and economic basis.
- Step 2: Diagnosis – Carefully considering patients behavior and physical symptoms, the nurse comes up with a diagnosis.
- Step 3: Outcomes / Planning – After diagnosis, nurse with their expertise place realistic goals to recover patients. Later, these objectives are thoroughly monitored.
- Step 4: Implementation – After executing the care plan, nurses guarantee steadiness of patient care while accurately documenting the patient progress.
- Step 5: Evaluation – Right after implementation, nurses closely analyzes care plan effectiveness and study response by patient. They enhance the care plan in order to attain the best patient outcomes.
Nursing students are mostly given case studies to diagnose patients, utilizing information about patient medical history, symptoms and other pertinent details. A case study allows testing knowledge of students who are practicing nursing in a clinical and realistic way. It is a useful learning tool that reflects on patient’s entire treatment course, ranging from acquiring information for diagnosis to treating medical condition.
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A successful case study completion calls for obtaining pertinent patient information. This could be done by taking questions such as; characteristics of the patient which includes sex, age, occupation and their location. Conditions like blood pressure and temperature should also be considered along with other symptoms severity. When did the symptom start and how severe it is? Gaining in-depth information allows making a better diagnosis.
The nursing practices deliver health care to patients for different healthcare requirements which may cover post-surgical and surgical assistance, dental services or specialized medical services etc. In order to provide these services, the nurses must be experienced and professionally qualified as they are required to undergo professional training. The case studies formation and analyzing are a part of training. The experts on Assignment Studio are here to help nursing students with the intricacies in writing, forming and solving case studies.
A Nursing case study helps students become readily practice prior stepping into the active workforce. It incorporates multifarious case assessment which is coupled with strategic nursing case management application. Planned nursing interventions grounded on nursing best practice understanding is the keystone of giving quality-oriented nursing case study analyses.
The nursing case study provides an in-depth analysis of a specific situation or an incident. It is considered a practical manner to demonstrate content and theory utilizing simulated or life situation. Simply, it’s also known as a nursing care plan which is written in an essay form. These stages are crucial in nursing process:
- Making patients assessment file
- Creating a list of patient diagnoses
- Specifying nursing interventions and defining goals of care
- Describing the manner to start the care plan
- Specifying how to determine if the nursing care plan goals and the outcomes have been attained
A well-written case study calls for careful consideration and good planning. The planning stage requires determining the focus of case study and coming up with objectives or outcomes which can be learnt from this report.
‘Nursing Case Study Categories’
A nursing case study comprises of sections which is organized into three categories:
- Patient status
- Patient nursing assessment
- Current care plan and recommendations for future action and improvement
- Patient status
Patient Demographic data
- Gender
- Date of Birth
- Country
- Ethnicity
- Blood Type
- Contact information
- Insurance provider, if any
- Major medical history
Patient Medical History
The personal medical history covers information on surgeries, allergies, immunizations, illnesses and other physical test results. This may include previous medicine intake, health habits (exercise and diet), past and current illness, and family health history.
Diagnosis and treatment
It covers patient early medical condition, diagnosis and treatment. Discusses the patient current symptoms and why h/she need medical care.
The patient status generally includes information about patient demographic data, their medical history, and current diagnosis and treatment. At first, describe patient’s social and family history and come up with the reasons of why patient sought medical attention and the consequent diagnosis to it. Later, make a discussion on the illness or disease process while identifying the underlying causes, observations and symptoms, also how the current treatment impact the nursing care.
Bit of information about the patient is committed to writing; relying just on memory is never good option. There is a need to explain why particular information is crucial to discuss in the study. Jot down the reason of patient medical care need with the first symptoms that patient experienced. Later, there is a need to find the succeeding diagnosis that was made.
Taking the diagnosis, discuss the progression of disease. Cover the causes and symptoms, also what was observed. Discuss what role the nurse will play.
- Patient nursing assessment
Test result and Vital signs
It is the measurement of most basic functions of body. The main vital signs that are usually monitored by health care providers and medical professionals to detect medical problems are;
- Pulse rate
- Body temperature
- Blood pressure
- Respiration rate
Nursing Observation
It includes mental state and range of motion etc. The physiological observation is essential for recognition of clinical deterioration and patient assessment.
When taking patient’s nursing assessment, it is required to cover nursing diagnoses. Discuss on vital signs and test results and give on nursing observations. Being particular, give reasons of why this diagnosis was identified. It can help determine the nursing care plan.
There is a need to prepare patient’s condition assessment along with reasons that explain why each assessment is made. For instance, a patient is diagnosed with cancer. A presenting symptom is difficulty in urination. This symptom has to be documented with potential causes of it. Based on cause, you need to come up with options for treatment.
- The current care plan and recommendations for future action and improvement
- Nursing care plan details (it covers nursing goals and interventions). It is a formal process that identifies existing needs as well as potential risks. It is a mean of communication among patients, nurses and healthcare providers in order to attain health care outcomes.
- Current care plan evaluation
- Changes in current care plan recommendations
This section calls for describing details of the nursing care plan that covers measurable nursing interventions and goals. There should be a clear explanation of how the nursing care plan will be useful in improving patient’s quality of life. Evaluation of current care plan recommendations for improvement is important. It should merely be based on patient’s diagnosis, prognosis and current status. The recommendations should be supported with relevant authoritative sources that should be cited in the proper style as per the guidelines.
Overall, it describes the treatment – therapy, medication etc. with reason of why each is appropriate for the disease. It explains how treatment plan is improving quality life of patient’s. Define the treatment goals and benchmarks for assessing success along with its documentation.
The Implementation and Documentation
After implementation of treatment, it has to be documented under each treatment activity that includes dose, time etc. and then track the improvement in terms of occurrence. For instance, you start a regimen of a diuretic for cancer patient. What ways the success will be determined? For how long the treatment will be implemented in order to determine success chances? In case if it is not successful, identify the next treatment option.
The gathered data must be carefully recorded and then reported under this section. It is the same as any scientific study. The data is analyzed prior making decisions about the treatment plan efficacy and arriving at conclusions.
So to conclude; at first, the patient is selected, h/her history is gathered and then it is diagnosed. Then a treatment plan is set up and the data is collected to determine the care plan efficacy. Later there is a room for recommendations.
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