Prepare Your interRAI Assessment Request for Proposals

Include criteria in your request for proposals (RFP) to make sure that vendors

  1. Use the Canadian version of the interRAI assessment standard
  2. Are licensed with interRAI and CIHI
  3. Negotiate software licence fees, system maintenance expenses and software updates
  4. Provide staff training on the software, as well as ongoing support
  5. Manage derived outputs from the interRAI assessment, such as
    • Outcome scales: Summarize the clinical and functional status of residents and establish a baseline for evaluating and tracking changes over time
    • Clinical Assessment Protocols (CAPs): Guide the care plan to reduce a person’s risk of decline or to increase his or her potential for improvement
    • Quality indicators: Track progress on quality improvement initiatives
    • Case-mix systems: Cluster populations with similar clinical characteristics and resource use, and provide information to support resource allocation decisions
  6. Include CIHI’s edit and validation rules in the software
  7. Conduct clinical/data quality audits
  8. Manage the process for reporting and extracting data based on CIHI’s submission specifications
  9. Can link your organization’s information system (e.g., registration) to other data collection systems
  10. Are able to integrate and streamline clinical documentation and organizational requirements
  11. Develop a schedule for installation and testing

You might also want to

  1. Consider retention of your own data
    • For example, if you change your vendor software, you need to be able to maintain historical data. The interRAI reporting systems at CIHI are longitudinal databases, so it is critical that unique identifiers for existing persons and records remain the same to avoid any impact on data submissions.
  2. Consider other system requirements, including customized needs and specific workflow/business processes

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