Nursing Assessment: Why It's Important

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Most nurses see it as a challenging task to make accurate and comprehensive nursing assessment documentation because there are lots of factors that affect the process. A good nursing assessment can be obtained if the nurse has the ability to consider both nurse factors and client factors, and adapt effectively with the situation brought about by these factors.

Most nurses take nursing assessment for granted; even though the topic is constantly being emphasized in lectures. Most nurses are very much preoccupied with medication administration, assisting with medical procedures and carrying out of doctor’s orders, but they fail to realize that the nursing process is the core of their profession, and nursing assessment is the first step. It is necessary to point out that the nursing process involves a step-by-step procedure, thus a poorly conducted assessment will lead to a poorly executed care plan.

Nursing assessment is important, and here’s why:

• It provides basis for formulating nursing diagnoses. Nursing assessment is perhaps the most important step of the process because it will direct you to precisely diagnose a client’s response to illness. Without assessment, the nurse would be unable to determine which aspect of the client’s health needs nursing assistance. It’s also parallel with the medical process, where the physician gathers the necessary data in order to arrive at a medical diagnosis. It’s just like detective work: how can you establish the case if you don’t have evidence to prove it?

• It guides the care plan. The assessment data also helps the nurse in setting the outcome criteria that are needed in the care plan. For example, if the client is experiencing fever, the nurse would accordingly set outcomes related to temperature regulation. 

• It provides baseline for evaluation. Assessment also directs the final step of the nursing process: evaluation. The data that you’ve gathered provides baseline values, and it tells the degree of deviation from the normal values. If the data are accurate and comprehensive, it would be easier for the nurse to set outcome criteria and determine if the client’s condition has improved based on the criteria. 

• It complements other people’s efforts for the patient. Aside from the benefits brought to the nursing process, nursing assessment also helps the other members of the healthcare team; if some piece of data about the client was not uncovered or examined by the other healthcare team members, the assessment data made by the nurse might have the necessary data that would fill it up. That’s the good thing about working with a team; even though each member uses the patient data differently, the data can be used by the whole team.

There are numerous points to consider why nursing assessment is important, but the crucial point is that without accurate and comprehensive assessment, it’s virtually impossible to carry out any nursing care plan.