The new Core Assessment is intended to address typical needs of well older adults and will include just 45 items, about one fourth of the items in the assessment currently being used. It will take about 25 to 35 minutes to complete and allow membership organizations for the first time to significantly streamline the assessment process.
The new Core Assessment gathers key information and when used with the Wellness Assessment provides a well-rounded view of independent persons. Data coming from the Core tool will inform organizations about their resident's health and wellness needs and potential risks to independence, and allow them to better target programs and resources to enhance healthy aging.
"The Core Assessment is a game changer and significantly reduces the time requirements for completing assessments," said Beryl Goldman, Director of Kendal Outreach, LLC, and COLLAGE. "Our members said that they wanted a streamlined health assessment that would cut out a significant amount of time to administer. This is now available to them -- it's really a cause for celebration."
Built into the new system is the capacity for the Core Assessment to "trigger," through a color-coded display, the need for staff to administer a longer instrument call the Comprehensive Assessment. Preliminary analysis suggests that about 15% of independent residents that have had a Core Assessment will trigger for the additional assessment.
In addition to streamlining the current health assessment system, COLLAGE has reduced the number of items in the
Wellness Assessment by just over 30%. A full coaching conversation that includes both health- and more wellness-
focused questions from the Core and Wellness Assessments will now take approximately 45 minutes to one hour to complete.
The COLLAGE assessment system is used by a consortium of organizations across the country working to advance healthy aging and improve health outcomes of older adults living independently. Members of the consortium -- continuing care communities, moderate-income and federally subsidized housing programs, and home care and community-based agencies -- believe that measuring outcomes is critical and that without outcomes, organizations don't know whether their programs are having the intended impact on residents and community.
Valid and reliable assessment data leads to: 1) the development of personalized healthy aging plans for individuals, and 2) a methodology to target the right programs and services to best match needs for a campus or community. This two-level approach enables individuals to take charge of their own healthy aging and allows organizations to focus aging support resources appropriately for their community.
Initiated in 2003, COLLAGE is a joint venture between Kendal Outreach, LLC, a subsidiary of Kendal, and the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, a Massachusetts not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Harvard Medical School. COLLAGE assessment tools are a product of interRAI, a collaborative network of researchers in over thirty countries committed to improving care and the collection and interpretation of high-quality data about the characteristics and outcomes of persons served across a variety of health and social services settings. More information is available from:
