Assessment of Acutely Ill Patient Care: Case Study Approach

On successful completion of this assessment and this module, you will have demonstrated your ability to:

1. Critically appraise assessment, planning, monitoring and subsequent treatment of patients presenting with acute illness.
2. Critically evaluate their own professional practice in relation to the management of acutely ill patients.
3. Critically reflect upon, and demonstrate competence in, the theory and practice related to acute illness.

Using a case study approach, students will discuss and reflect on the care management of an acutely ill patient, taking account of best available evidence (2500 words).

• No individuals (including patients and staff) should be contacted.
• No medical, health or any other records should be used.
• Confidentiality needs to be maintained including the explicit use of pseudonyms and, as appropriate, removal or modification of personal identifiers.

• Only one episode of care should be discussed – the episode of care that is discussed needs to be identified at the start.

Focus

• The focus should be the patient.

Patient Case Can be a:

• Patient recently or previously encountered by you or colleagues.
• Patient in your current or previous health settings.
• Patient you have professionally and anonymously discussed with other professionals.
• Patient encountered during student placement (during your nursing training).
• Made-up case study, accommodating issues you would like to explore, within the confinements of the Learning Outcomes.

Cannot be a case from:

• The internet.
• Published sources.
• Similar sources to the above.

Brief, key background information, relevant literature including explaining what the case of acute illness is and  what the work will explore.

Demographic of the patient, the patient’s main compliant/s, relevant medical, and psychosocial history, management of the patient and reflection.

Discussion of the relevant literature, arguments with rationale, inferences explained, lessons learnt or what we can take from the discussions, considerations for practice and/or research going forward, strengths and/or limitations.

In preparation for the summative assessment all students will be required to engage in the activities in the different units of the ‘Study Materials’. These need to be posted on the Discussion Board.

On the following page you will find the rubric that your tutor will use for marking. The rubric will help identify different areas of strength and those areas in need of further improvement. Your tutor will also provide personalised feedback and feedforward in relation to your achievement of the Learning Outcomes for this module. 

Presentation is an important part of your academic work. Please follow the presentation guidelines below.  

Your title page must include: 1) the name of the university, 2) the course title, 3) the module code and title, 4) the name of the module tutor, 5) the word count, and 6) statements (see below).

‘I declare that this assessment is my own work and that I have correctly acknowledged the work of others using the Harvard referencing. This assessment is in accordance with University guidance on good academic conduct.’

Confidentiality statement (if applicable)

‘I declare that confidentiality of people discussed in this work is maintained; there is no identifiable information of these individuals.’

Your manuscript needs to;

• Include page numbers (pages should be numbered at the top right).
• Be double-spaced
• Have a 1-inch (2.54 cm) margin, Times New Roman or Arial, 12 font.
• Maintain the confidentiality of service users/patients/clients and persons associated with them, service colleagues and organisations.
• Include a reference list (Harvard referencing), headed with ‘References’ centred, do not make it bold.
• Use ‘the author’ to describe yourself (however you can use ‘I’ or ‘my’ etc. in self-reflection e.g., this phenomenon was often present in my practice