Comprehensive geriatric assessment: the specific assessment technology of InterRAI

In the context of population ageing, the provision of person-specific care to older persons is complicated by the presence, in a single individual, of multiple chronic conditions, and an increasingly complex, non-institutionally-based, service delivery framework. The most complex seniors benefit from a comprehensive geriatric assessment which, in order to promote greater health system integration and coordination, must be standardized across care delivery sectors. InterRAI instruments provide such functionality, which not only supports more efficient and comprehensive care planning, but leads to multiple useful derivative applications for clinicians, health administrators, and policy makers, such as screeners, risk stratification algorithms, outcome scales, quality indicators, and case-mixed indices. Furthermore, clinical information collected through interRAI instruments provide a rich and robust resource for health research.