To meet the challenge of decision making in client care, the nurse needs a comprehensive data base - gathering data is a prerequisite for problem solving and individualized interventions. Assessment is now a critical part of every nurse's practice, as all nursing decisions and actions are based on initial and ongoing assessments. Therefore it is extremely important for nursing students to develop excellent assessment skills. This blended course is designed to develop the cognitive processes and psychomotor skills necessary for conducting health assessments of healthy individuals. In other words, students learn how to gather data, what data to gather and what to do with the data once is has been gathered. Nursing students must understand what the expected assessment findings are for each system, before they can recognize any abnormalities that might be seen in clinical courses. To this extent, the students must complete the online theory portion of each unit prior to attending and practicing the skills on each other in the onsite lab component.
This course prepares beginning practitioners to complete a health history as well as a head-to-toe physical assessment. These skills are essential for successful clinical practice.

"Nursing Health Assessment has been offered as a blended course for four years. Each semester changes have been incorporated using the student final course evaluations. Using the evaluation rubric from the Exemplary Course Program encouraged fine tuning of the instructional design and has therefore enhanced student learning."