Functional health pattern assessment on-line. Lessons learned.

Assessment of patient care needs is the foundation for planning patient care and documenting the nursing process to enhance the nurse's ability to coordinate care, plan discharges effectively, and provide appropriate patient/family education. An on-line assessment module in the hospital clinical information system was implemented. This module uses Gordon's Functional Health Pattern Assessment as the foundation for the professional nursing documentation system in this academic, health science center. The article provides a description of the design of the pathways for the on-line assessment, analysis of the design, benefits of using the on-line assessment, and lessons learned from the design and implementation of the pathways.