HLTAHCS002 Assist with health assessments

Release: 1

HLTAHCS002 Assist with health assessments

Modification History

Not applicable.

Application

This unit describes the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to work under the direct supervision and instruction of medical or other health practitioners to assist with health assessments. It requires the ability to assist practitioners to collect client information, provide clients with information during and after assessments and to provide basic assistance with examinations and tests.

This unit is specific to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people working as health workers. They work as part of a multidisciplinary primary health care team to provide primary health care services to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients.

This unit is particularly relevant to the role that these health workers have in assisting with cyclical general assessments of the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. In this context, a general medical practitioner is responsible for the assessment and the health worker facilitates communications and cultural safety for the client. Circumstances may involve clients and medical practitioners who have different first languages, have different cultural backgrounds or may be of different genders.

The skills in this unit must be applied in accordance with Commonwealth and State or Territory legislation, Australian standards and industry codes of practice.

No regulatory requirement for certification, occupational or business licensing is linked to this unit at the time of publication.

Pre-requisite Unit

Nil

Competency Field

Health Care and Support

Unit Sector

Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health

Elements and Performance Criteria

ELEMENTS	PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
Elements describe the essential outcomes	Performance criteria describe the performance needed to demonstrate achievement of the element.
1. Assist practitioners to collect client information.	1.1. Confirm with practitioner own role in health assessment and in collecting client information. 1.2. Communicate consistently in culturally appropriate and safe ways with client and/or significant others. 1.3. Assist practitioner to obtain client medical and social history and information about specific presenting problems using effective plain language questions. 1.4. Facilitate questions and answers between client and practitioner and confirm client understanding. 1.5. Assist with explanations about organisational requirements for maintaining confidentiality of information and permissions for disclosure. 1.6. Extract and convey essential information, where language barriers exist between client and practitioner. 1.7. Discuss and clarify mutual understanding of client information and assist practitioner to document client history.
2. Assist practitioners during examinations and tests.	2.1. Facilitate culturally safe and effective communications between practitioner and client throughout all examinations and tests. 2.2. Ensure client understands reasons and procedures for each examination and test, confirm informed consent and explain what this means. 2.3. Implement required infection control precautions according to examination and test requirements. 2.4. Work under instruction to assist with equipment, physical examinations, tests and records. 2.5. Participate in culturally safe, empathetic client discussions to assist with social and emotional wellbeing assessments. 2.6. Encourage client to express any difficulties with health assessments and tests that relate to community values, beliefs and gender roles.
3. Assist with discussions about assessment outcomes.	2.1. Discuss and confirm with practitioner health assessment results, recommended medical and other interventions. 2.2. Interpret and clarify, with practitioner, health terminology relevant to assessment outcomes and provide plain language explanations to client. 2.3. Deliver clear and accurate information in culturally safe ways to support client and/or significant others understanding of assessment outcomes and proposed actions. 2.4. Discuss need for a health care plan, how they are developed and what they comprise. 2.5. Encourage client and/or significant others to question and clarify outcomes, and purpose of proposed treatments and interventions. 2.6. Confirm client understanding and assist practitioner to document information provided.

Foundation Skills

Foundation skills essential to performance in this unit, but not explicit in the performance criteria are listed here, along with a brief context statement.
SKILLS	DESCRIPTION
Reading skills to:	interpret detailed and sometimes unfamiliar client records, involving medical terminology and abbreviations.
Numeracy skills to:	interpret and explain to clients numerical values of assessment outcomes, involving weights, lengths, rates, degrees and percentages.
Problem-solving skills to:	recognise miscommunications and take steps to resolve.
Technology skills to:	recognise and assist with setting up and handling medical equipment used for physical examinations and tests.

Range of Conditions

Unit Mapping Information

No equivalent unit

Links

Companion Volume implementation guides are found in VETNet - https://vetnet.gov.au/Pages/TrainingDocs.aspx?q=ced1390f-48d9-4ab0-bd50-b015e5485705