Health and wellness information is gathered from clients through a voluntary one-on-one conversation with a qualified staff person using the computerized COLLAGE assessment tool. Questions focus on residents’ interests, needs, experiences, preferences and challenges. If the staff person and resident identify an area or theme that is particularly challenging—such as nutrition, sleep, exercise or preventive health maintenance—together they develop an individualized plan for addressing it. The COLLAGE conversation offers an opportunity to collaborate with clients and better plan for their futures, potentially enriching their lives, both within and outside the community. Information gathered during the assessment conversation is entered into the COLLAGE software by staff, either as the conversation proceeds, or at its conclusion.

COLLAGE and Your “Community” of Residents

For a campus or community of residents, COLLAGE helps identify residents who need assistance in areas such as medication and pain management; health screening and making appointments; shower safety; vision or hearing testing; loneliness, depression and memory loss; nutrition; managing housework; and chronic fatigue. With a deeper knowledge of clients’ needs and interests in the aggregate, your community is better positioned to develop programs and services to improve quality of life on a larger scale.

COLLAGE and the Consortium of Aging Services Providers

Assessment information is transmitted in an encrypted format to the COLLAGE national data repository housed at The Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston. Repository reports, based on the assessment data, are provided to all consortium members and offer aggregate comparisons: consortium member-to-member, campus-to-campus or residence-to-residence within a multi-site organization, and member-to-comparison group (data sets of persons living in the general community). The repository is another window into performance, benchmarking, and quality improvement.