Mental Snapshots: Creating an Organized Plan for Health Assessment

• Nursing students ascertain meaningful health data through partnership learning.
• Mental snapshots create an organized plan for health assessment.
• Nursing students learn to collect, process, and manage critical health data.
• A patterned sequence of focused assessments to identify priority health needs.
• Mental snapshots teaching method promotes patient quality and safety.

Beginning nursing students enter a rapidly moving and changing health care climate. Multiple stimulations can frighten and overwhelm the student's ability to find order of essential patient information. Students need to know how to collect, process, and manage important health data accurately and efficiently in the clinical setting. An integrative method for teaching nursing students to walk into the patient's room and construct a patterned sequence of focused assessments assists students in creating an organized plan for health assessment. The Mental Snapshots Method includes three components for health assessment: (a) sequential assessment steps of the patient; (b) color-coded visual images of the patient representing a bodily condition; and (c) focused assessment questions of primary health complaint(s) with a plan for nursing care. This mental snapshots strategy employs an information processing model of sensory, memory, and motor functioning, which enable students to maintain patient quality and safety.