Word limit: 1,500 words

Weighting: 35% (Marked out of 100)

Due Date: see Course Profile

 Aim:

The aim of this essay is for you to discuss the management of a complex patient who may be at risk for deterioration (and family where appropriate) and design a plan for your practice to improve situational awareness during transition for this patient.

This assignment addresses Course Learning Outcomes 1 and 2.

1. Apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills to design comprehensive situational assessment for complex clients.
2. Interpret evidence to identify and manage deteriorating clients and support their families.

 Task description:      

For this task you need to choose a patient* from practice who has complex care needs, and will undergo transitions in their care and write a 1,500 word essay.

In your essay you need to complete an evaluation of this patient’s care needs and develop a plan to improve practice.

Further task information:

• Introduce the essay [150 words]
• Present a summary of your chosen patient who is at risk of deterioration, detailing the issues that create complexity for this patient, following an assessment model for detecting deterioration [300 words]
• Critique the situational factors related to the risk of deterioration for your patient, supported with evidence from the literature [550 words]
• Design a nursing management plan that highlights key points of care, and where higher risk is identified, ways to diminish that risk [350 words] (dot points or numbered plans are encouraged in this part of the essay).
• Present a conclusion of the most relevant points discussed [150 words]
• Use headings:
  • Introduction
  • Patient summary
  • Situational factors related to deterioration risk for [patient name]
  • Nursing management plan
  • Conclusion

Other elements: 

• *Ensure you use a pseudonym for your patients and other identifying information.
• Always refer to the Health Writing and Referencing Guide.
• Use APA 7^th edition referencing style.
• Ensure that you use scholarly literature^[1] (digitised readings, research articles, relevant Government reports and text books) that has been published within the last five years, two to three seminal works may be used.
• Use academic language^[2]
• Refer to the marking guidelines when writing your assignment. This will assist you in calculating the weightings of the sections for your assignment.