Teaching & learning focused physical assessments: An innovative clinical support tool

Over the years, nursing instructors have utilized multiple active learning activities to assist students in developing competence in physical assessments. Supportive peer evaluation, use of video technology as well as the use of standardized patients have been recognized as important instructional strategies for assessing and evaluating student performance promoting deeper learning, improved self-assessment, stronger critical thinking skills, and better accountability. Teaching nursing students physical assessment is often done with the use of a structured 'head to toe' approach. But in addition to learning 'head to toe assessments', there is a need for nurses to complete a focused assessment of the systems that are presenting health challenges for the patient. There are several tools or cheat sheets available to guide both the comprehensive 'head to toe' assessment and systems focused assessments but there are no tools outlining the process of doing focused assessments within a head-to-toe assessment. To address this need, one nursing teacher in a baccalaureate nursing program at a university in Western Canada decided to create a clinical support tool to guide learning of this critical clinical reasoning skill.