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Last updated: Sep 20

Evaluation forms and automated assessment reports for occupational therapy

Director, and Occupational Therapist at Laneway OT

Occupational therapists at Laneway OT automated their assessment forms and therapy reports using Plumsail Forms and Documents. This article is based on the information they kindly shared with us.

In this article

In addition to the article, watch the interview with Erina Tan from Laneway OT on our YouTube channel:

 

Before Plumsail

Failing to meet clients' expectations

As occupational therapists, everything we do centres around our relationship with our clients and the people in their support networks. We take pride in our work and are known for our comprehensive assessments and highly detailed reports.

Taking weeks to issue reports was putting strain on our relationships with our clients and was costing us repeat referrals. We knew that rushing service provision would only result in errors and more damage to our reputation, but we didn't have a workable plan to improve our report turnaround time Taking weeks to issue reports was putting strain on our relationships with our clients and was costing us repeat referrals. We knew that rushing service provision would only result in errors and more damage to our reputation, but we didn't have a workable plan to improve our report turnaround time.

Chaos in business processes

As a business owner, everything I do centres around relationship with staff. Practitioners were frustrated with having to format fonts in Word after copying and pasting blocks of template texts into client reports. Admin staff were spending hours filling in Word documents, then printing, signing, scanning, uploading, and either emailing the digital file or posting the paper copy to clients so they could sign. As a business owner, everything I do centres around relationship with staff. Practitioners were frustrated with having to format fonts in Word after copying and pasting blocks of template text into client reports. Admin staff were spending hours filling in Word documents, then printing, signing, scanning, uploading, and either emailing the digital file or posting the paper copy to clients so they could sign.

Only to get files returned in the post that needed scanning, uploading, then emailing to the necessary stakeholders, before shredding the paper copy. I was spending hours training staff to complete laborious processes and felt guilty about all the wasted paper.

Erina Tan
We had everything on paper and so we were contributing to the environmental crisis, I would say, where all of our forms were on paper. The forms were all being sent out manually, or emailed manually, and uploaded manually, and there was a lot of extra steps.
Erina Tan, Founder and occupational therapist at Laneway OT

Discovering Plumsail products

Trying Plumsail Forms for therapy evaluation forms

Fortunately, going eco is a journey we are on, and it was our preference for digital forms over paper and our goal to be 90% paper-free by 2024 that led us to Plumsail. With Plumsail Forms, we made big changes to our intake processes, creating online versions of all our paper forms.

Service agreement

Laneway OT's first form, Service Agreement form

It was so much fun, and it enabled us to see what was possible. Creating the forms was easy, but getting our heads around all the features took a bit longer. The Plumsail website has loads of useful documentation on how to auto-populate fields, show and hide fields, and calculate totals, and the Plumsail community and support team provided snippets of code to customise features within the forms.

Service agreement animated

Service agreement form changes dynamically, depending on client's answers

Therapy report generation with Plumsail Documents

With Plumsail Documents, it became possible for us to send a client a series of intake forms to sign, and then distribute a PDF version to all the necessary recipients, both inside and outside our organization, all from that single email.

Functional capacity assessment

Laneway OT's most advanced form, Functional Capacity Assessment form

It revolutionized the way we handle admin and inspired us to create an online Plumsail Form for capturing comprehensive assessment data and a Plumsail Documents process to populate the data directly into our report template, reducing our report turnaround time.

Functional capacity assessment animated

The form has hundreds of fields, which are shown/hidden or populated based on previous answers, streamlining the process and eliminating potential errors

See how conditional sections work in the Health Service Agreement template, where fields appear only when relevant to the client's answers.

Results of Plumsail products in occupational therapy: Admin time cut by 75%

By developing forms with Plumsail, we have cut our admin time by 75%, our face-to-face assessment time by 25% and our report-writing time by 40%. On a few occasions, we've even been able to write, produce, and release reports on the day of the assessment.

Erina Tan
It hasn't been without challenges, but overall we're very, very pleased with the product and its functionality and we haven't found anything else that can do anything close to what Plumsail does.
Erina Tan, Founder and occupational therapist at Laneway OT

Our reports are more detailed, look better than ever, and are free of the human errors that 6 consecutive hours of report writing can so easily result in. We're so pleased with the process and the outcomes.

Forms in active use

Forms are in active use in Laneway's everyday work

As a business, it's always great to save time and money, but for us, the real benefits are measured in the improvement that Plumsail Forms and Documents have brought to our relationships with clients and staff. We also love that we hit our target of being 90% paper-free by 2024! Thanks, Plumsail.

Get started with Plumsail Forms & Documents

You can also create complex report forms and set up a similar process using this logic with the help of Plumsail Forms and Documents. For example, you can:

  1. Design your first form and start with a free plan of Plumsail Forms;
  2. Start PDF generation from Word template, using data submitted with the form.

For a more in-depth understanding, delve into our blog, community, and dedicated documentation for both Forms and Documents.

If you have any questions or require assistance, reach out to our support team or schedule an intro call. We provide help and guidance to beginners and experienced users alike.