About the tools
The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) replaced the National Aged Care Screening and Assessment Form on 1 July 2024. The IAT is the new tool to conduct aged care needs assessments to determine eligibility for government-subsidised aged care.
The AN-ACC Assessment Tool is used to conduct residential aged care funding assessments. This assessment is undertaken to determine an older person’s AN-ACC classification after they settle into their aged care home. The assessor is independent of the residential aged care facility.
Why it is important
The IAT responds to recommendation 28 of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
The Royal Commission found that the previous aged care assessment process was confusing for older people and their families to navigate. People often bounced between assessment organisations, needing to retell their story multiple times.
The IAT allows assessors to collect more complete information about the older person once and ensure service recommendations and referrals are tailored to their current needs.
The AN-ACC Assessment Tool is designed to be robust and concise to identify the level of an older person’s needs in residential aged care.
Integrated Assessment Tool
Aged care needs assessment organisations use the IAT to undertake both home support and comprehensive assessments to determine a person’s eligibility for:
- in-home aged care
- flexible aged care programs
- residential respite
- entry to residential aged care.
Benefits of the IAT include:
- one dynamic tool for all assessment types
- flexibility to adjust questions based on various factors, such as background, previous answers and whether the assessor is clinical or non-clinical
- nested questions to tailor assessments, only diving deeper into areas where needed, ensuring a proportionate assessment process
- threshold questions that trigger extra questions for clinical assessors, allowing more in-depth exploration of flagged concerns
- validated tools to improve the depth and clinical relevance of the assessment
- pre-population of relevant information from triage and screening, so older people will only have to tell their story once
The IAT was developed in consultation with assessment organisations, including a live trial with more than 22,000 assessments. Read the IAT live trial report 2023.
The IAT will be updated when needed to improve the assessment process for older people, and to support the introduction of the new Aged Care Act and Support at Home program from 1 July 2025.
My Aged Care – Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) User Guide
AN-ACC Assessment Tool
The AN-ACC Assessment Tool was developed in consultation with clinical experts in health and aged care.
The AN-ACC Assessment Tool focuses on independently capturing the core attributes of an older person’s care needs that inform costs in residential aged care. These include:
- mobility
- personal care
- cognition
- special individualised support.
To learn more about the residential aged care funding assessments.
