Completing an evaluation is the critical first step in defining a resident's documented care services within ALIS. This guide walks you through the entire process ensuring you accurately capture each resident's needs and build a solid foundation for their Service and Care Plans.
About the Evaluation Cycle
The ALIS team commonly works with your company or community leaders to build an integrated tool used to evaluate residents and determine their care needs. If you plan to build your own Resident Evaluation Tool (RET), refer to this How to build a Resident Evaluation Tool in ALIS guide.
When you complete an Evaluation in ALIS, you initiate a standardized three-part process designed to review your resident's needs and create a clear plan for their care.
The three components of this process are:
The Evaluation (the topic of this article): The questions and answers that comprehensively assess a resident's health and acuity.
The Service Plan: A document generated from evaluation answer choices that outlines required services. A clinical team member schedules the specific services that will appear on the Care Plan. The completed Service Plan document, including the set schedule, serves as the contractual agreement between designated community member(s) and the resident, responsible party, or other required signers. For more information, refer to this guide: How to complete a Service Plan.
The Care Plan: The actionable schedule used for daily Care Tracking.
All three parts can be generated as PDFs for printing or signing.
Start New Evaluation
You can find the Start New Evaluation button for a resident in two primary locations:
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The Evaluation Center
- Needs Attention tab: Check here if the resident is an Applicant or if their current evaluation is expired.
- All Resident tab: Search here for Current Residents who have not been evaluated in ALIS before.
- For more information, read this Evaluation Center Reference Guide.
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The Resident Profile
- Navigate to the section titled Evaluations & Service Plans. Click the Start New Evaluation button at the top right of this section.
Note: If an evaluation is already 'In Progress', click Continue to resume or delete it to restart. Continuing is recommended to retain prior responses.
Add Evaluation Information
Once you click Start New Evaluation, you will encounter the Evaluation Information screen.
Complete the following fields:
Product Type: Confirm the resident's care type (e.g., Assisted Living, Memory Care). It auto-populates from the resident profile.
Date: Defaults to today's date. Set the official date of the evaluation.
Reason: Determines the evaluation purpose (e.g., Initial, Annual, Change of Condition, etc.) and the next due date.
Internal Notes: Notes are visible only in ALIS and will not appear on the final printed PDF.
Click Save Evaluation Information to proceed to the full assessment.
Navigating the Resident Evaluation page
Before adding information and answering questions in the evaluation, it is important to understand the main components and navigational tools of this page. The evaluation page is divided into sections to help you track progress and identify requirements.
Status Indicators (Top Right)
Percentage Bar: Tracks overall progress. The percentage is reflective of how many required questions have been answered.
Red Box: Indicates the number of Required questions remaining. You cannot complete the evaluation until this box shows '0'.
Yellow Box: Indicates the number of Optional questions remaining.
Care Points/Level: Displays the current calculated points total and resulting Care Level (if applicable). Points accrue and corresponding levels automatically populate as questions are answered in the evaluation. These points and levels are based on your Resident Evaluation Tool Settings. Points values on answer choices can only be overridden by authorized administrators.
Sub-Assessment Group Totals (if applicable): If your community uses Sub-Assessment Groups, live-running totals for these additional clinical scoring categories display alongside the resident’s Care Points and Care Level throughout the evaluation.
Point Values From: Defaults to current Settings. Most likely you will not change this as points settings will be determined by your company/community administrator and the ALIS team.
Downloads and Dropdown menu (Top Left)
Download Evaluation > Filled/Blank Template to generate a preview PDF before entering data below. This is useful if you prefer to review the questions on paper first.
Download Previous Evaluation is visible here if the resident has been evaluated in ALIS before. Click to generate a PDF of the most recent evaluation.
Choose a Question from the dropdown menu to quickly navigate to a specific question in the evaluation below. This can be particularly useful if you are continuing an in-progress evaluation and need to pick up where you left off.
Note: If your evaluation tool has been configured to contain any compliance items that require completion as part of the evaluation, you will also have a button here for you to download that PDF.
ALIS-Synced Evaluation sections
Regardless of your evaluation tool configuration, the left side of every evaluation displays three standard, directly synced sections:
- Health Profile
- Immunizations and Tests
- Contacts
Data Sync with Resident Profile
These sections are direct mirrors of the Resident Profile and populate the cover pages of your Evaluation, Service Plan, and Care Plan PDFs. You do not need to re-enter data if it already exists, but you should review for accuracy and make updates as needed. Any changes made here automatically sync with the Resident Profile (and vice versa).
Saving Changes
Unlike the rest of the evaluation, these sections do not auto-save. You must click the Update button within each section to save changes.
Health Profile Visibility
By default, the Health Profile section appears at the top of the evaluation and on all generated documents.
Administrators can disable this using the “Display Health Profile on Evaluations and Service Plans” setting:
- When enabled (default):
- Health Profile and Immunizations and Tests appears in the evaluation workflow
- Included on Evaluation and Service Plan PDFs
- When disabled:
- Health Profile and Immunizations and Tests sections are removed from the interactive evaluation
- Removed from all generated PDFs
Immunizations and Tests
When displayed, you can use the Upload Certificate option to attach vaccine records within the Immunizations and Tests section.
Contacts Section Behavior
The Contacts section cannot be removed from the interactive evaluation experience and will always be visible to users completing the evaluation.
However, it can be removed from Evaluation and Service Plan PDFs using a separate Care Setting.
Custom Evaluation sections
The remaining sections contain your organization's specific assessment questions and answers.
Section color coding:
- Green: Section is complete.
- Red: Section contains unanswered required questions. Select the Show needing attention checkbox at the top of the page to hide other sections and only display any red ones.
- Yellow: Section contains unanswered optional questions.
Section Summaries:
Under the name of each section, there is a running total of the impacts generated by your answers, including:
Total Needs triggered
Total Care Points accrued
Any Care Packages triggered
Evaluation Questions
You can click the Expand/Collapse All Questions button to open or close all questions within the section. Alternatively, you can click on the far right arrow of each question bar within a section to expand or collapse individual questions.
Questions Types
Single or Multi-Select: If you select a specific answer choice (e.g., "Requires physical assistance"), it most likely triggers a specific Need.
Text Boxes: If a question simply provides a box for you to type information, these details are recorded on the Evaluation document only. They do not flow to the Service Plan.
Service Plan Triggers
If your answer choice triggers a specific resident need, a yellow box will appear to the right of the question.
This indicates that the answer and the specific "Need" description inside the yellow box will flow directly to the Service Plan for you to set a schedule that will be reflected on the Care Plan.
Care Packages: Some answers may also trigger "Care Packages," which are groups of defined tasks that will be assigned to the resident's Care Plan and typically cost an additional, one-time fee. For more information, refer to this Care Packages in the Evaluation guide.
Care Points
Some answer choices automatically assign a points value to the resident's acuity score, which may be displayed to the right of the question depending on your security role permissions.
Overriding Points
If you have access, you may see an Edit Pencil when hovering over a points value. Click this to manually adjust the points for that specific question only if necessary.
Sub-Assessment Group Points
Some evaluations may include Sub-Assessment Groups to track additional clinical scoring areas. Common examples include standardized assessments such for cognitive status, frailty, ADLs, or behavioral indicators.
If your access permits you to view Care Points in the evaluation, these points will also be visible when answering applicable questions.
Group points are informational only and do not impact billing, rates, or Care Levels.
Default/Custom Notes
Many questions include a Notes field for documenting additional details related to the resident’s needs and care preferences.
Some questions may also contain pre-populated Default Notes or prompts configured by your administrators and the ALIS team during the Evaluation setup process. Use the Notes field to respond to these prompts or add your own Custom Notes as needed.
Any notes entered here will flow directly to the resident’s Service Plan. If notes are not added during the Evaluation, they can still be added or updated later within the Service Plan.
If the triggered Need also creates a Care Plan task, these notes may serve as caregiver instructions (for example, “Resident prefers assistance on left side”).
Speech-to-Text Transcription (Optional)
You can use speech-to-text to dictate Notes instead of typing.
- Select the microphone option within the Notes field
- Speak clearly and at a steady pace
- Your speech will automatically transcribe into the text field
⚠️ Important: Always review and edit transcribed notes before saving.
Complete the Evaluation
Once all required questions and necessary notes have been captured, the green Complete button becomes available at the top right of your screen. Click this to finalize the assessment and proceed to the next steps.
Set Next Evaluation Reason and Expiration
Once you click Complete, a pop-up appears prompting you to determine the schedule for the resident's next assessment. These will pre-populate based on your Resident Evaluation Tool settings.
Next Evaluation Reason: Select the reason for the next evaluation (e.g., Annual, Change of Condition).
Expiration Date: Confirm the specific date in the future when this just completed evaluation will expire. This date determines when the resident will reappear in the "Needs Attention" tab of the Evaluation Center.
After setting the dates, it is recommended to click Go To Service Plan. This is the most efficient workflow, as it allows you to configure the Service Plan immediately and then collect signatures for both documents immediately following. For further instructions, read the How to complete a Service Plan guide.
Note: Most organizations re-evaluate residents at a regular cadence two to four times yearly. However, if a "Change of Condition" occurs, you should re-complete the evaluation immediately. Remember, ALIS retains all answers and notes from the previous evaluation, so you are simply reviewing the data for changes rather than starting from scratch.
Signatures
Signatures are managed centrally on the Evaluation & Service Plan Details page.
While you do have the ability to sign the Evaluation immediately after completion, it is most efficient to wait until you have also finished the Service Plan.
The specific number and role of required signers (e.g., Nurse, Administrator, Resident) are customizable based on your organization's settings.
You can access the signing page by clicking Sign or Manage Details next to any completed document in the Evaluation Center.
For more details on managing signatures, refer to the Evaluation Center Reference Guide and E-Sign Evaluations and Service Plans articles.
Related Articles:
- Evaluation Center Reference Guide
- How to complete a Service Plan
- E-sign Evaluations and Service Plans
- Care Packages in the Evaluation
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