interRAI

This article by Dr. R. Knight Steel in the NJ Star Ledger on 1/1/2007 caught our attention:

I recently attended a meeting of interRAI, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster quality care for older people everywhere. Only 15 years old, it has representatives from some 26 countries. Using data on the process of care of some 15,000,000 elders from multiple nations, these researchers have published about 500 scientific papers.

Here's their Mission/Vision:

Our goal is to promote evidence-based clinical practice and policy decisions through 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.

Although each instrument in the interRAI family of tools and applications has been developed for a particular population, they are designed to work together to form an integrated health information system. interRAI instruments all share a common language, that is, they refer to the same clinical concept in the same way across instruments. Using common measures enables clinicians and providers in different care settings to improve continuity of care, as well as to integrate care/supports for each individual. Common language also allows families, advocates and public payers to track the progress of program participants across settings and over time. Such information can yield important findings regarding what works to improve an individual's quality of life.