How to be a better OT

How to do an OT home assessment

• Clare Batkin - Your OT Tutor • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Are you taking your patients on home visits without a clear plan, or wondering if you really need to use a standardised home assessment tool? Discover how to conduct efficient, safe, and goal-oriented home assessments, whether you are facilitating a hospital discharge or doing a community review.

Episode Summary: In this episode of the How to Be a Better OT podcast, host Clare Batkin breaks down exactly what goes into an occupational therapy home assessment. Clare explains the different formats a visit can take, from taking a patient home from the hospital, to conducting access-only visits, and even using telehealth. She walks you through a step-by-step process covering crucial pre-assessment risk planning, prioritising your room-by-room observations, and formulating practical recommendations that actually align with your client's long-term goals.

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Choosing the Right Format: Learn how to decide between an in-person visit with the client, an access visit without the client, or a telehealth assessment using photos or video walkthroughs.
  • Safety First: Discover why you must complete a home visit risk assessment before every visit, establish clear boundaries with your workplace, and always "park like a getaway driver".
  • Room-by-Room Priorities: A breakdown of exactly what to look for at the access points, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and living room, keeping your client's energy levels and specific functional goals in mind.
  • Standardised Assessments: The pros and cons of using structured tools, and a look at the differences between the Westmead Home Safety Assessment and the HOME FAST screening tool.
  • Making Recommendations: Why you must consider funding resources, prognosis, and long-term housing plans, and work collaboratively when making your recommendations.

 

Links & Resources Mentioned:

 

If you found this step-by-step guide to home assessments helpful, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a fellow OT! Be sure to tune in next time when we will be switching from assessment to intervention and covering our next core skill: how to prescribe assistive technology.


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Now, hopefully all this planning means that there won't be any unexpected surprises. But if something doesn't feel right at any point in the visit, it's okay to leave, even if you still have more questions to ask, even if you haven't taken photos of everything yet. The most important thing is your safety, and often your gut is right. So as part of the planning, you can also ask your employer what you can, can't, and should do if you were to suddenly feel unsafe, so that you know exactly what to do rather than trying to figure it out in the heat of the moment. Welcome to the How to Be a Better OT podcast. I'm Claire Batkin, an OT and clinical educator who is on a mission to make professional development simple, practical, and worth it for OTs. If you're ready to step back from the overwhelm and bring core frameworks to life, join me for step-by-step guides and practical solutions that will build your confidence and competence so you can deliver the best outcomes for your clients and truly love what you do. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of How to Be a Better OT. Today we are looking at the OT home assessment. So this is an assessment of a client's physical home environment to identify risks, functional barriers, and what supports might be needed. Exactly what it looks like, what's included, and the logistics of how it's carried out varies depending on the setting and the purpose, but otherwise the core OT process and the principles will feel familiar no matter where you work. I'll start by talking you through the different types of home assessment formats, then I'll talk you through a step-by-step process for completing a typical home assessment, such as from a hospital or community setting. So here's a bit about the formats and the when and why of doing a home assessment. So here's some examples. Hospital OTs will often do home assessments to ensure that everything is in place in terms of equipment, so the patient will be safe upon discharge. These visits are more common for OTs within a rehab setting, as they have more time with the clients to fit in a comprehensive in-person assessment, whereas OTs in acute hospital wards may not have that luxury, and they may need to do some quicker home assessments that are often just as appropriate anyway. I'll explain what I mean. Hospital OTs can complete home assessments in a few different ways. So they could take the client with them in the hospital car, do the assessment of the client's home and their function within the home, then bring them back to hospital to sort everything out before discharge. Another option is that sometimes the patient can't participate in a home visit. An example could be someone who's had a significant stroke and is unable to walk, and they'll be requiring hoist transfers and maybe some bed cares upon discharge. This person is not going to be safe to travel in the car with the OT, but we still need to know what their home looks like so that we can make sure an adjustable bed will fit, that a hoist will fit, or that a commode will fit. So instead of bringing the patient with us, we'll make some arrangements with a family member or a friend of the patient to meet us at the person's house, and then we can complete an access home visit instead. This allows us to check what the front and the back access is like, what room the family should be setting up the adjustable bed and hoist in, so that we can give the person the tick of approval to be able to go home. So, so far we've got the home visit where a patient comes with us from hospital to do a test run of whether they'll be able to manage everything when they go home, and this type of visit with the patient or the client present is the one that I'll be focusing on when we go through my step-by-step approach. And then we've got this access home visit, where we meet a family member or another person at the person's home to work out exactly what sort of equipment or modifications might be needed for somebody who's not able to go to the visit themselves. The final format is the telehealth version where we're either doing an online video call or we're using offline videos or photos to assess the person's home environment, and then we go on to make recommendations using these. Now before you think telehealth isn't as good as in person, and yes, there may be some cases where this is the case, there's also lots of evidence that telehealth visits result in similar recommendations to face-to-face visits, but they can also save a lot of clinician time, and this is why it can be a popular option with acute hospital wards where we just don't have the time to do a three to four-hour round trip of a face-to-face assessment. So an example here could be a young adult on an orthopedic ward with a decent leg fracture who's going to be going home non-weight bearing for six weeks. We know he's going to need a shower stool and a toilet frame, but you also have concerns about how he's going to get into his house because there are lots of steps at the front door. So rather than taking the patient with us, because with a fresh fracture, doing lots of hopping along on crutches is probably the last thing they want to be doing, we could maybe use some videos and photos instead. So the patient may already have some photos of their home on their phone, or if they have a tech-savvy family member or friend at home, they could even do a video walkthrough like the kind that real estate agents do, and share the link to a video so that we can see it all that way. So speaking of real estate, sometimes it's that the person's home has actually recently been listed for sale or for lease, and we can still find photos that the agent took, and we can just ask the client, "Is this still the same or have things changed?" Even something like Google Maps can be really helpful to see what that front access looks like without having to go there, Just make sure that you're still checking that the details are correct with your patient. So they were all the hospital examples, but what about community-based OTs? Well, in general, most of the time they will take the form of a home assessment with the client present, but instead of them traveling with you in your car to get there, they're already home. We may still also use telehealth versions as a community OT as well, especially if you're working with someone from regional or remote areas but let's rewind a little before we move on to the step-by-step process and talk about how to decide which format to go with, especially if you're a hospital OT and you've got a few options to choose from. So the key is to think about how much time you have, whether you can still reliably get good information about the person's home environment and their function within it without having to be there, and even if the patient doesn't attend in person themselves too. So sometimes that face-to-face home assessment is definitely needed, but other times you just haven't thought through whether there was an alternative If you'd like some further help with these types of decisions, I do have a tutorial on when and why to do a home visit within my paid Connector membership, and this tutorial also touches on when to do those home visits, not just for a home assessment, but for ongoing therapy sessions too. Within the Connector membership, you'll also be able to find a full webinar on the topic of home assessments, which will walk you through a more detailed example and a step-by-step process that I'm about to tell you now. So the first step is to decide that a home assessment is definitely indicated, and then decide which format it's going to take, whether it's in person with the client, an access assessment only without the client, or some sort of telehealth version. So for this part we're going to focus on the process of completing a home assessment as a rehab hospital OT who's working with Ruth, who's going to be discharged from a geriatric rehab ward after having an unplanned hip replacement following a fall and a fracture. So we've decided that after a long stay, Ruth has lost her confidence and she's worried that she won't be able to manage safely at home. And we share some of those concerns too, and we'd love to be able to double check the fit of a transfer bench and an over toilet aid before we give her the tick of approval for discharge. So we book in a home visit where Ruth will come with us to her home and her son's gonna meet us there as well to let us in and to join in on the session as well. As we're actually doing this booking process, we need to be completing a home visit risk assessment of some description. Now, what these look like will vary depending on your workplace, but in a hospital setting especially, there's a lot of governance around this, and governance is basically just all the policies and procedures about how to do that type of risk assessment. So often there's a checklist that looks at things like does anyone smoke? Have they got a history of being violent? What pets will be there and can they be restrained? Are there any weapons on the premises? Things like that. So if you don't routinely do a home visit risk assessment, I highly recommend you start doing it because it is essential for your safety, but it can also make the experience more pleasant for the client too. Now, I have a video about this in my free learning library, As well as a prompt sheet for creating your own home visit risk assessment checklist if you don't have one. But one thing I have included in my version, which is sometimes left off others, is what are the risks to the client as well? So hospital versions will often ask you can they have their medications before the visit? But it can be more than this. So make sure that your client knows exactly what to expect about the assessment process. Make sure if they have a positive behavior support plan in place due to challenging behaviors, that you know about this before going into their home for the first time and maybe inadvertently doing something that's going to be triggering for them. And make sure you know about any cultural expectations, such as whether you have to take your shoes off, so that you don't offend anyone when they first let you into their home. Not great for rapport building. Home visit risk assessment checklists can also help you plan out the next step, which is the logistics of completing that home assessment. And remember, in this example, we're talking about the assessments where you've taken the client out there with you. So to take a client away from the hospital ward, make sure you follow any specific workplace practices. But in general, they need to be medically stable, they need to be able to have their meals or their medications outside of that home visit time, and this means that you need to have clear communication with the nursing staff and the rest of the team on the ward so they know what your plans are for the day and why you need some priority time with the client that day. Now, once you've done that, make sure you don't underestimate how long it will actually take. Now, when it's just you doing an access visit, you can quickly power walk down to where you can pick up the hospital car, but this will be a much slower process when you're taking the client, especially if you need to find a wheelchair and wheel them down there as well to help save their energy for the actual assessment. Now, once you get there to your patient's home, you should have already thought about where you're going to park. Now, top tips, park like a getaway driver, where you can easily do a quick getaway if something unexpected or dangerous comes up. So generally, don't park in someone's driveway because you could be parked in. Make sure you always check that your phone reception is working, along with following through any duress or personal alarms that you might need to use so that your workplace can contact you or you can contact them in the case of an emergency. Now, hopefully all this planning means that there won't be any unexpected surprises, but if something doesn't feel right at any point in the visit, it's okay to leave, even if you still have more questions to ask, even if you haven't taken photos of everything yet. The most important thing is your safety, and often your gut is right. So as part of the planning, you can also ask your employer what you can, can't, and should do if you were to suddenly feel unsafe, so that you know exactly what to do rather than trying to figure it out in the heat of the moment. Okay, so now you're in your client's home. What next? This is where it will differ depending on whether you're doing your home visit as a hospital OT doing one for discharge planning or a community-based OT meeting your client for their initial assessment, which includes the home assessment. Now, community OTs will be meeting the client for the first time, so with time and practice, they become really great at merging that initial assessment and home assessment into one if the occasion calls for it. Whereas hospital OTs already generally know their patient really well when they're going out for that home assessment, so they are there purely to look at that home environment and their client's function within that environment. For this next bit, I'm going to keep it simple and focus on the what to do when you already know that initial interview type information and you're just there looking at the home environment, like that hospital OT home assessment. Now, as with all things in the OT world, you generally don't have infinite time to look at everything in detail, so you need to know what your priorities are and how much time you'll have before you can even get to the visit. If you're bringing the patient with you from hospital, you may have a specific window where you need to get back so the patient can have their meals or medications, or you've probably got a ward full of other patients to see as well, so efficiency without rushing will be key. Also consider your patient's energy levels. So after a hospital admission, most patients aren't feeling their best. There could be varying levels of deconditioning or pain, and they're going to feel tired quicker than usual, so manage your expectations accordingly. Don't expect them to power walk around their house giving you a demonstration of every transfer in every room and then do a quick meal prep assessment at the end. You'll need to be strategic about which observations will be most crucial to the goal that you're trying to achieve. For someone having a home assessment to determine safety for discharge, usually those priorities will be that they can manage transfers involving their bed, toilet, shower, and lounge chair. Can they get in and out of the home via at least one access, and can they get themselves a snack in the kitchen safely if they're home alone? You don't need to assess their ability to mobilize around the backyard and water their plants if that's not going to be essential for discharge, or their ability to put on a load of washing in their laundry if you know that they won't be completing these tasks immediately upon discharge and will be having some community OT rehab input before they're doing that anyway. Whereas these activities could be the primary things causing difficulty for someone not admitted at hospital who's receiving their home assessment from a community-based OT. So know what your functional goals are for your client with a focus on safety and meaningful activities, and let that guide what observations you focus on and which areas of the home you actually assess. I'll walk you through what to focus on in each part of the home now, But as I'm doing this, the principle that applies to everything is to take photos if you can. Make sure you have the client or patient's consent, but photos can make such a difference to the efficiency of your visit and the accuracy of your notes. If time's limited, you can take photos of the access stair so you can easily go back later and check what side was the handrail on or how many steps were there, even if you don't have time to write down all those details in your notes during the visit. A picture can also paint a thousand words and can make it easier to convey the results of your assessment to other team members. So instead of just coming back and telling the physio that the patient will need some more stair practice because the front access steps look a little bit dodgy, you can take a photo to share with them so they know exactly what they'll be dealing with to help set up some realistic practice for the patient before discharge. If it's awkward carrying around a clipboard or laptop taking notes because you're also trying to provide standby assistance to your patient or client, you may be able to record some voice notes instead. So for the private sector OTs who don't have as many strict rules and governance around artificial intelligence or AI use, there are even ambient listening devices that could pick up your comments if you commentate as you do your home assessment and assist with the documentation later as well. But for now, let's start the tour. So let's start at the front or the side or the back or basically however they get into their house or their unit or their villa or even their caravan. Take note of any uneven pathways, any slopes to navigate from the road to that access point, whether there's a lift when there are a flight of stairs to navigate, such as in a unit block. Also take note of the doorways, so how wide are they, and whether doors open in or out, which is extra important for people trying to open their doors independently while maneuvering a mobility aid. And this is where it's important to simulate what the reality will be for your patient upon discharge. So if they'll need to get in and out of their front door independently, let them attempt that if they're safe to do so, rather than holding the front door open for them during your assessment. Different story if you know they'll only be leaving the house with their family member there to assist, then obviously you can be the helper in that situation. Once you're in, the main priorities are often the bathroom, toilet, bedroom, kitchen, and living room or wherever they'll be spending the majority of their day. So let's start with the bathroom. Some things to take note of here are the type of shower or bath. So is it a shower recess or is it a shower over a bathtub or do they just use the bathtub? Is there a fixed shower screen or a curtain?, If it is a screen, which way does it open or does it slide on itself? And if this is the case, what is the door opening size? Is there a hob or a step to get over? Is there a grab rail or a handheld shower hose? Now, most of this information you'll probably already know if you're a hospital OT, as we commonly cover it in our initial assessments. But if you're a community OT, you'll be finding out this information for the first time more than likely. So this is where photos are really helpful so that if you forget to ask anything or check anything, you can just have a look back at your photos later. The most important thing to do if you have the patient with you is to practice that shower transfer. They don't need to have a shower, just simulate the task with their clothes on and the floor dry. If they struggle with it in those circumstances, having a wet surface and no clothes will be an even bigger struggle. And if you've got equipment to fit, put it in place and actually give your patient more than one opportunity to practice that transfer if they've got the energy Next we'll visit the toilet. So sometimes this will be in the same bathroom, other times its own separate room. This is another important one to actually practice again, especially if they're using a mobility aid like a walking frame for the first time. It can be really tricky to get into a small toilet room and shut the door while pushing a four-wheeled walker, and you may find the only solution is the person will leave their walker outside the door. Now, this is really crucial information to take back to the physio so that they can practice that type of mobility before the person's discharged from hospital. This is also one area where a tape measure could be handy to see exactly how high the toilet is. If you need to practice this transfer further prior to discharge to see if they'll definitely need that toilet frame with a built-in seat that can be higher or one without. Also pay attention to which direction the outlet of the toilet faces. Strange, I know. Most of them will go straight back or down, but occasionally you'll see one that goes out to the side, and this can make it really difficult to use those frames and put them in place in the right spot. For those access visits we do without the patient where they'll be going home requiring maybe a high level of care, we may also need to measure the circulation space to make sure that a commode will easily fit and and the toilet height will be even more important to make sure that a commode will easily fit over it. Again, this is why we need to be clear on what the goals are for your patient so that you can focus on the aspects of the home assessment that will be most relevant to their situation. So we've done the front access, the bathroom and toilet. Next, we'll talk about the bedroom. We take note of what type of bed. So is it a standard or adjustable? What size is it? And what's the circulation space like, including whether they'll be able to get in and out on any side or just one side because it's actually up against a wall. This can be really crucial if the patient has a good or bad or a weak or strong side following something like a stroke or a hip replacement, and they need to get in or out on a certain side of the bed. Also take note of the surface. So is it carpets, tiles or mats? And this will be really important if they're using a wheeled mobility aid or if they'll be transferred via a mobile hoist that moves around on wheels. And the location of the PowerPoint will also be important for this reason. So where will an air mattress or bed plug in and where will the hoist plug in when it's charging? And again, if your patient is there, give them the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to get on and off their own bed. If it's a struggle, but you know there's time for them to practice, measure how high it is so that again, that can be replicated and worked on in hospital prior to them being discharged home. Now something important to remember is not just the individual spaces, but the distances between them. So take note of how far it is between the bedroom and toilet and what the lighting is like. So this can be the deciding factor for whether a person will be able to safely complete nighttime toileting by themselves or whether a commode is going to be needed . Now we'll move to the kitchen. Now this is where you need to go back to what your client's functional goals are. Will they actually ever be using the kitchen, or do they have a family member or partner who always does all the cooking, and there's not really any need for the person to go into the kitchen anytime soon? If they do go into the kitchen, though, what do they use it for? Do they use the microwave, stove, and the very top cupboards, or do they only ever go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and somebody else does the other tasks? We only need to look at the parts of the kitchen that they need to use or that they want to use. So some things to look at include what is the circulation space like? Is there enough room for a mobility aid or to add a perching stool if they need to sit to conserve energy? How easy is it to reach the microwave or the oven, or to get out plates or mugs that they use every day? How easy is it for them to use those appliances safely? In terms of observations, what you do here will depend on, again, the client's goals and the time you have available. So if time is tight and you're able to look at someone's functional cognition in more detail on the rehab ward, during the home assessment, you might just do a simulation of cooking where you get them to demonstrate reaching into the cupboards or lifting something out of the microwave, especially if they're doing it with a new mobility aid for the first time. Whereas if you're a community OT, and one of the main reasons for your involvement is because the person is having difficulty with meal prep, you will probably actually do a full meal prep activity analysis, maybe on a separate follow-up home visit, where you can look at all the steps of the task in more detail, including their organization and other cognitive skills, not just their ability to reach things. Now, before we leave the kitchen, though, I have said focus on the tasks the person needs to do, but I also mentioned wants to do as well. Just because your client or patient doesn't normally do much in the kitchen, don't assume it's because they don't want to. Sometimes their health condition or disability has made meal prep too difficult, and it's a valued activity that they needed to give up, not by choice, but by necessity. Now, this could be an opportunity to explore further, either during your home assessment or something to flag for further exploration later. It may not be something they're using now, but something you still want to look at because it's important that they'll want to be using down the track. Now we'll leave the kitchen and we're heading to the living room or the lounge room or potentially a sunroom or office area, basically whichever area of the home the person spends most of their time in when they're not preparing food, using a bathroom or sleeping. Now again, start by thinking about what activity do they need to do in this room, and do observations of movements needed for those activities. Some common observations will be can they get in and out of their recliner or lounge chair? If they sit at a dining table to eat, can they get in and out of their chair? And then look at things like does it actually have armrests or not? Do they sit at an office style desk in a wheelie office chair to work on their hobbies? Don't make assumptions about how someone spends their day, actually ask them. So they are the key parts of the home to start with, but if time permits and your patient's energy levels permit, you can also look at other aspects of the home too. So places like the laundry, other bedrooms they occasionally use, or into the backyard. If they're important parts of your client's daily life and you think they'll need or want to access them, then try to fit them into your assessment. Now, we've got a couple more topics to cover in this podcast, but we're on the home straight. We're going to talk about whether or not you should use standardised home assessments And also what you need to know about documentation and making recommendations following your assessment. So standardised assessments, do you need them or not? I'd say that in general, most experienced OTs don't routinely use a standardised assessment, Usually because they know exactly what they need to look at and check based on their years of experience, and not using a standardised assessment allows them the flexibility to focus on whatever is most important to that individual client. But there are many benefits of using standardised home assessments, so don't discount them as being too time-consuming or unnecessary. If you're new to doing home assessments, they can provide you with a structured format to guide you so that you can work through your patient's home systematically room by room. Most are focused on identifying physical barriers and falls risks rather than concerns based on cognition or lack of energy, so they may not have all the prompts that you need to address your client's individual issues, but they can be a really helpful starting point for learners. Some examples of standardised assessments that are commonly used here in Australia are the Westmead Home Safety Assessment and the HomeFAST, or the Home Falls and Accident Screening Tool, which are both designed to address falls risk for older adults, but they could be used for other populations with physical impairments too. The Westmead Home Safety Assessment has a long and a short version that are freely available, and the long version covers a comprehensive list of over seventy categories. Whereas the HomeFAST could either be done by the client as a free online self-assessment, or clinicians can pay for annual access, but it's less than fifty dollars at the moment to be able to access some extra patient education resources and a printable manual. The other difference is that the HomeFAST is scored. So there are only twenty-five items, but the person gets one point for every hazard present. And if they have more than nine hazards, this is a validated cutoff score indicating a higher risk of falling. And numbers like these in themselves can be really helpful. So sometimes when funding systems want proof of risk levels or of objective data about the value OT can offer, it's numbers that make the difference more than qualitative descriptions. For example, we could do a home FAST that indicates someone's home environment is placing them at risk of falling, and this can strengthen the evidence to add OT funding to somebody's package in the first place. Then research has shown that this tool is actually quite responsive to change. So we could do our OT intervention, such as home modifications, providing equipment, or providing behavior modification suggestions, and then redo the assessment. And if everything else stays stable, such as a person's health, we'll hopefully see a drop in that score, which reflects the value that we've offered throughout our interventions So definitely worth exploring those standardised options and keeping them in your toolkit, if not for all clients, for at least those types of situations where more data is needed Next, we'll talk about recommendations. Now, once you've done your thorough home assessment, with or without a standardised assessment tool and with or without the client present, you need to make recommendations for what comes next. What environmental barriers or hazards did you identify? What further functional improvement is needed before a patient is safe for discharge from hospital? To make appropriate recommendations following a home assessment, we need to keep in mind what the person's diagnosis and prognosis is. Is it an acute fracture or elective surgery where function is actually expected to improve? Or do they have a deteriorating condition where it's expected their mobility will decline and any hazards that you identified will become more challenging unless you put those solutions in place? The other factors to consider are resources. How will those recommendations be funded? Will the patient self-fund? Will they be reliant on a home care or NDIS package, or do they only have access to low-cost short-term items via a hospital equipment loan pool? And finally, also think about their long-term housing plans. Do they plan to stay in that home long term, or is the client already thinking about relocating to something that will be more suitable for their needs? You definitely need to know these sorts of plans because you don't want to start the process of requesting complex home modifications if your client intends to move later that year. Because chances are they won't be approved, started, or completed before they move, and for funding packages like the NDIS, it may mean they spend their funding on a house that they won't be staying in, and then they can't access additional funding to modify the new house that they want to move into. So to recap, consider their long-term housing plans, the resources of funding available, and the person's diagnosis and prognosis to inform your recommendations. Then once you know these things, start with the lowest cost, quickest to action options first, especially if there are immediate risks that need addressing. So some simple options could be things like clearing clutter or rearranging furniture, buying that $100 toilet frame or teaching a new transfer technique rather than jumping straight to, "We need to do a full major bathroom modification." It's also important to remember that making recommendations isn't only on you. You can share your findings from the home assessment with the rest of the multidisciplinary team and hear their ideas about what might be suitable to work towards. You also need to keep the client and their family as part of the discussion. Provide them with information about the risks and what the possible solutions can be so that they can be an active participant in deciding what solutions are acceptable to them and which ones are the biggest priorities to action first. And then once you've got your list, and sometimes even while you're still formulating and finalising your list of recommendations, you also need to document your home assessment. How you do this will again depend on your setting and workplace. Within a hospital, often there is a home assessment template or checklist type form that you can fill in and that can be saved or added directly to your patient's medical file. Other workplaces may use something like the Westmead Home Safety Assessment and add that directly to the medical file. While others you'll need to go beyond a template or a summary progress note and actually write up a formal report of some description, which is often the case in the community settings. The key content that needs to be covered, whatever approach you take, is that there's a description of the person's home environment and how they function within it, there's a list of any hazards or barriers that have been identified, and there's a summary and list of recommendations outlining the potential solutions and plans that will need to be implemented. As part of this, if the person needs more OT input, make sure this is explicitly stated, and if the home assessment was done as part of discharge planning for a patient in hospital, make sure the goalposts for what they need to be able to do to go home safely are explicitly stated in the progress notes and reported to the team in case conferences. Something like, "The patient's not safe to go home until low-cost equipment is in place, or until they can transfer independently on and off a sixty-centimeter high standard bed." Okay, well, that is it. We have finished our step-by-step guide to doing an OT home assessment, starting with being clear on the format the home visit will take and what goals you're trying to achieve by doing a home assessment. You then need to consider and manage any risk to you or your client's safety during the home visit, decide whether you're going to use a standardised or non-standardised approach, and then do your comprehensive walkthrough of the that prioritises the most important tasks and includes not just you looking at the home environment, but an activity analysis of the tasks the person will be doing within that environment. Then you pull together your documentation and collaboratively come up with some potential solutions to the issues that you identified. Sounds easy, but will take lots of brainpower and thinking while you're learning. But I promise that it is something that will become much easier over time and remember, if you do want a deeper dive into this topic, including a worksheet that takes you through this process, You can join my Connector or Alliance membership and you'll be able to access a recorded webinar on demand, as well as some extra downloadable resources as well. So that's the end of this podcast episode. I'm sure you're wondering what's coming up next. So next we'll be switching from assessment to intervention, and we're talking about how to prescribe assistive technology. So hopefully it'll flow nicely from this podcast because often AT is that key recommendation that addresses many of the issues that we'll identify in home assessments. Once again, we'll go through a step-by-step process and I'll have some case study examples thrown in to illustrate different points. But thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you again then. The information shared on this podcast is for general educational use only, so please always use your own clinical reasoning and seek appropriate professional supervision for any individual client situations. If you'd like to learn more with Your OT Tutor so that you can be a better OT who loves what you do, check out the Your OT Tutor website. The links will be in the show notes. There are free resources in the learning library, paid CPD memberships, online courses, supervision and mentoring opportunities, and options for your team to all learn together with me.