People with chronic illness or disability often depend on a variety of clinical and support services. This may occur simultaneously – for example, people may use mental health and community services – or sequentially – they may transfer from community to hospital to post-acute care. interRAI identified the need for compatible assessment instrumentation that could be used across care domains, which resulted in a long and complex “restructuring” process. In April 2005, our first integrated suite of assessment instruments was released.
These instruments are built on a common (or core) set of assessment items that we consider important in all care settings. These common items have identical definitions, observation time frames and scoring. Additional items specific to a particular care settings are then added to the core item set. This approach to instrument design yields the following benefits:
- Data can be transferred from one instrument to another when individuals are accessing more than one service type, or when they transfer between care settings
- Training of staff who work in different settings is simplified
- A common language of assessment that speaks across the continuum of care becomes available
Instruments in the suite are badged with the nomenclature “interRAI – Care Setting”. For example, the home care instrument is entitled interRAI HC. (This instrument is thus an upgrade of the RAI HC v2.0.). The following instruments comprise the suite:
- interRAI HC - Home Care
- interRAI CHA - Community Health Assessment
- interRAI CA - Contact Assessment
- interRAI LTCF - Long Term Care Facility
- interRAI AL - Assisted Living
- interRAI AC - Acute Care
- interRAI PAC - Post-Acute Care
- interRAI MH - Mental Health
- interRAI CMH - Community Mental Health
- interRAI ESP - Emergency Screener for Psychiatry
- interRAI PC - Palliative Care
- interRAI ID - Intellectual Disability
Manuals, scales, casemix tools and quality indicators compatible with the suite will be released as they become available. Information will be posted on the interRAI website. The instruments may be obtained by contacting an interRAI representative in individual countries or Mary James at the University of Michigan, USA.
Australia: Len Gray
Canada: John Hirdes
China: Xiaomei Pei
Czech Republic: Eva Topinková
Estonia: Kai Saks
Finland: Magnus Björkgren
France: Jean-Claude Henrard
Germany: Vjenka Garms-Homolová
Great Britain: Iain Carpenter
Iceland: Pálmi Jónsson
Israel: Jacob Gindin
Italy: Roberto Bernabei
Japan: Naoki Ikegami
Netherlands: Dinnus Frijters
New Zealand: Nigel Millar
Norway: Liv Wergeland Sørbye
Poland: Katarzyna Szczerbińska
Spain: Sergio Ariño Blasco
Sweden: Gunnar Ljunggren
Switzerland: Ruedi Gilgen
Taiwan: Chung-Fu Lan
United States: Mary James
