The Importance Of Personal Health Assessment

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According to David (2008), health assessments are red-hot right now- and for good reason. With health care costs estimated to increase to more than $4 trillion by 2016, personal health assessments will help to ameliorate some of these costs by providing individuals with much needed health information so that they can manage their current health status and, perhaps even more importantly, prevent health problems before they occur. Moreover, personal health assessments, if used strategically, will aid employers in better understanding the collective health risks of their employee populations – thus allowing them to incorporate important and necessary interventions that will effectively address unhealthy behaviours at the workplace. Health assessment …show more content…

Health assessment creates a teachable moment that is highly conducive to engaging individuals in health improvement programs. Research shows the positive impact on population health and financial out comes of well-designed programs using a health assessment with designed programs using a health assessment with relevant follow-up. According to Wikipedia (2014), health assessment is a plan of care that identifies the specific needs of a person and how those needs will be addressed by the healthcare system or skilled nursing facility. It is the evaluation of the health status by performing a physical exam after taking a health history. It is done to detect diseases early in people that may look and feel well. Janice and Kerry (2014) posited that various formats for obtaining the health history (the collection of subjective data about the patient’s health status) and performing the physical examination (the collection of objective data about the patient’s health status) have been developed because the focus of each member of the health care team is unique. Regardless of the format, the information obtained by the nurse complements the data obtained by other members of the health cart team and focuses on nursing’s unique concerns for the …show more content…

Health history is designed to assess the effects of health care deviations on the patient and the family, to evaluate teaching needs, and to serve as a basis of an individualized plan for addressing wellness (miller-Keane, 2003). The primary purpose of health history is to attempt to find out as much about each patient as possible, so that health personnel can treat the patient safely and

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