2022-08-30

All User Bulletin - Cognitive Assessment Tools

All-user-bulletins highlight stumbling blocks that all prescribers need to be aware of when using the Connect Care clinical information system.

Change in Embedded Cognitive Assessment Tools

Connect Care provides access to a wide range of clinical scores, scales, calculations and assessment tools. These are described in the Clinician Manual.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) takes care to ensure that permission is obtained from copyright holders for any scores, scales or tools embedded in the Connect Care clinical information system.

The copyright contract for two popular cognitive assessment tools will expire August 31, 2022: the Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). AHS has carefully reviewed evidence-based alternatives and has elected to obtain permissions for a panel of these in Connect Care. 
Prescribers can find cognitive assessment tools via the Flowsheets activity within an opened chart. They are also available in a clinician-friendly format in both a "Scores and Scales" navigator (use chart search for "score" and select "jump to Scores and Scales") and the inpatient chart sidebar (use the sidebar index to navigate to a "Scores" view). Both the navigator and the sidebar have groupings for AHS approved cognitive assessment tools. 

The sidebar tools are interactive, in that any score can be selected to update its data then closed with the refreshed data showing in the sidebar. The Sidebar also provides links to the Navigator as well as other clinically useful quantitative tools.