evidence based health assessment

priority levels

level 1, level 2, level 3

level 1

emergent, life-threatening, immediate; vital signs, high BP and heart rate. ABC

level 2

next in urgency– require prompt intervention to prevent deterioration (from waiting, premature discharge etc). May present as mental status changes, infection risk, abnormal labs, acute pain, etc

level 3

not life threatening or debilitating; can be addressed after the more urgent cases

types of assessment

complete, focused, follow up, emergency

complete assessment

includes current and past health states; forms baseline to measure all future changes

focused assessment

collection of mini database; smaller scope and more focused on current problem

follow-up assessment

evaluates status of initial presenting problem at regular and appropriate intervals

emergency assessment

rapid data collection and diagnosis, often compiled concurrently with life-saving measures

diagnostic reasoning

uses cues, clustered cues, hypotheses, and hypothetico-deductive model

cues

piece of information, sign, symptom, or laboratory data about patient

clustered cues

information related to one specific system or problem

hypothesis

tentative explanation for a cue or set of cues that can lead to further investigation

hypothetico-deductive model

attend to initially available cues, cluster related cues, formulate diagnosis hypotheses, gather data related to tentative hypotheses, and evaluate each hypothesis with newly collected data