Nursing Assessment Paper

The national league for nurses defines critical thinking in the nursing process as “a discipline specific, reflective reasoning process that guides a nurse in generating, implementing, and evaluating approaches for dealing with client care and professional concerns” (Kozier, 2008). This definition is imperative to help a nursing student learn how to think in terms of nursing care. Nursing students must achieve a comprehensive understanding of critical thinking in order to understand the nursing process. The purpose for this paper is for nursing students to learn how to use the nursing process, how to properly document their findings and assessments, and correctly implement APA formatting in a formal paper. HK passed away October 25, 2009 at the age of 87. He was a Caucasian male. He was married but his wife passed away before him. He had one daughter, who took care of him before he was admitted to the ECF in August of 2009. He attended high school until 11th grade when he decided to go into the Navy. He served in World War II. He spent 35 years of his life living in Las Vegas. He owned his own business, but had to move back to Ohio due to his altered health state and inability to take care of himself any longer. The development of the nursing process includes five phases. Assessing is the first step in the nursing process. This step incorporates collecting, organizing, validating, and documenting the data. The second step is diagnosing which means the nursing student would analyze the data, identify the health problems, risks, and strengths of the patient, and formulate the diagnosing statements. Planning is the third phase. The nursing student needs to be able to prioritize the problems, formulate goals, and select and write nursing interventions. The fourth phase of the nursing process is implementing. In this phase the nursing student must reassess the client and determine if more assistance is necessary before continuing any care. Then the nursing student

References: Ackley, B. & Ladwig, G. (2008). Nursing diagnosis handbook: An evidence based guide to planning care (8th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby. Berman, A., Snyder, S., Kozier, B., & Erb, G. (2008). Fundamentals of nursing: concepts, process, and practice (8th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Education. Sparks, S. & Taylor, C. (2005). Nursing Diagnosis Reference Manual (6th ed.). Philidelphia: Lippincolt Williams and Wilkins.