Clinical assessment evaluates healthcare professionals’ competence in their field and identifies areas for improvement. Methods include observation, critical incident recording, and self-evaluation. Ongoing assessment aims to enhance performance and guide healthcare, including addressing incompetence.
A clinical assessment is the processes and procedures performed to evaluate a healthcare professional’s competence in applying their area of expertise in a clinical setting. There are several methods used by healthcare professionals and administrators to evaluate other healthcare professionals or themselves, along with a wide variety of tools used to assist in the process. The purpose of the clinical assessment is to determine the level of expertise the healthcare professional displays in their field and to identify areas for improvement. Typically, clinical assessments are ongoing, beginning in school and continuing throughout a professional career at various levels.
Methods most used in clinical evaluation include recording critical incidents, conducting observations and case studies, keeping diaries, and even implementing self-evaluation methods. Observation is often a key method implemented where a senior mentor is assigned to the healthcare professional to observe their practice and recommend areas for improvement. Using observation, critical incidents will focus specifically on a practitioner’s behavior in a given situation. In particular, the most concerning behaviors are those with the greatest impact on outcomes. By carefully monitoring these behaviors, mentors will document the incident and associated reactions to help professionals better understand the actions taken and focus on areas for improvement.
Proficiency in the practice of healthcare, whether for a doctor, a nurse, or even nursing, is critical to patient care and safety. As such, clinical assessment is typically an ongoing process not only performed by peers or mentors, but also used by many healthcare professionals to measure their competencies and achieve improvement. Most often for self-assessment, health professionals will keep diaries, write case studies about specific situations, and use a variety of self-assessment techniques to aid in the process. These techniques often include the use of video recorders to capture his actions in practice for later analysis, while making use of scales to monitor and evaluate performance.
Consistent and ongoing clinical evaluation, carried out through self-evaluation or under the direction of an authority, aims to enhance the performance of both the healthcare professional and the entire healthcare organization. Total competency is often assessed to include attributable behaviors and task outcomes, as well as the practitioner’s approach to ethics and values that affect a particular competency. Overall, the process is intended to guide healthcare performance, but at times it will inevitably identify incompetence and eliminate it to include the relief of healthcare workers in some cases.
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