Holistic Nursing Assessments

Holistic nursing assessments are carried out in order to provide the most effective patient-centred care. Carrying out holistic nursing assessments, such as a falls risk assessment, can identify if a patient is at risk and allows the nurse to put a preventative plan in place. For example, when caring for the elderly, scoring a patient’s risk of falling allows the nurse to carry out preventative actions to stop this patient from falling, such as ensuring bed rails are up while the patient is sleeping (Lannering et al, 2016).
Nursing assessments provide a number of benefits to the patient. They allow for preventative nursing interventions to take place so that the risk will not turn into a reality for the patient e.g. nursing interventions to