92608 Advanced Assessment and Diagnosis

Subject level: Postgraduate

Handbook description

This subject builds on students' developed skills in health and physical assessment aiming to develop diagnostic skills as they relate to advanced assessment. Advanced assessment skills are studied in relation to inductive or inferential reasoning, clinical thinking processes and clinical judgment. Students learn how to prescribe and analyse common diagnostic and laboratory tests, related to their area of practice, as well as the results of health and physical assessment. A focus is on the development of the skills required to critically analyse patient/client health data in order to diagnose health need and appropriately make referrals to other health practitioners. The subject assumes that students are in concurrent clinical practice.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. apply theories of diagnostic reasoning, health assessment and judicious ordering of diagnostics in clinical practice (ANMC competency 1.1)
2. critically reflect on and situate your own knowledge and learning needs in the context of diagnostic reasoning and health assessment (ANMC competencies 1.2, 2.1, 2.3)
3. apply conceptual arguments to the processes underpinning advanced assessment and diagnostic reasoning (ANMC competencies 2.1, 2.3)
4. demonstrate rapid assessment of a patient's unstable and complex health care problem through synthesis and prioritisation of historical and available data (ANMC competency 1.1)
5. demonstrate in a clinical environment a comprehensive patient assessment (general and focused) identifying variations of normal and abnormal states (ANMC competency 1.1)
6. demonstrate in the clinical environment, synthesis and interpretation of assessment information including patient/client history, physical assessment and diagnostic data to formulate an effective patient management plan and/or appropriate referrals (ANMC competency 1.1)
7. demonstrate the ability to articulate and justify the decisions that arise from health assessment, including consideration of risk management for diagnostics (e.g. radiological investigations or invasive diagnostic procedures) (ANMC competencies 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1)
8. demonstrate the ability to meet ANMC competencies for the nurse practitioner within their clinical practice (ANMC competencies 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1).

Content

• Introduction to the subject
• Overview of comprehensive health assessment
• Assessment within acute environments
• Assessment and diagnostic reasoning
• Pathology tests and health assessment
• Radiological studies and health assessment
• Mental health assessment
• Simulation to identify learning needs
• Consultancy and referral
• Making sense of health assessment data
• Panel discussion: reflections on assessment in practice–nurse practitioners/senior clinicians