The interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI CA) supports the intake process for agencies providing home care and/or palliative care. Its design was guided by three goals:

• to support decision-making about the urgency for immediate service provision;
• to record essential clinical information on persons who would not be receiving comprehensive assessment at a later stage;
  
• to provide the minimum clinical information to enable short-term services to be put in place before completion of a full interRAI assessment.
  

In designing the interRAI CA, it was recognized that multiple informants --prospective clients, spouses, children, health professionals-- may contact home care agencies for a variety of purposes (e.g., some people may specifically request home care services whereas others needing services may initially ask only for information). The needs of the person can be expected to include both those explicitly stated by informants, as well as previously unrecognized problems.

The interRAI CA is not a substitute for a comprehensive interRAI assessment. It records only essential information needed at the time of intake to support decisions regarding the need for further indepth assessment, the urgency for home care service provision, and the need for specialized services (e.g., rehabilitation). The interRAI CA is not intended to be a care planning instrument like the interRAI HC, but it does provide some important clinical information needed at the onset of home care service provision.

The interRAI CA is designed to be used as a multi-step process involving documentation and decision-making in the following sections:

1. Section A documents demographic information and the reason for referral.

2. Section B contains items used in a decision-making algorithm to differentiate “non-admit/information and referral” persons who do not require further screening or assessment from those who are likely to benefit from further evaluation of the need for home care services. Based on the results of the screening items in this section, along with clinical judgment, the decision is made about completing, or not completing, the remainder of the instrument.

3. Section C contains all remaining items needed to derive clinical decision-support algorithms, as well as additional clinical information about persons who require only short-term services.

4. Section D records summary information regarding clinical decisions and sources of information.

For further information on the CA contact:
John P. Hirdes, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, University of Waterloo, 
& Scientific Director, Homewood Research Institute, Canada
Email: hirdes@uwaterloo.ca