Creating Better Experiences For Occupational Therapists’ Bathroom Asse – Showerbuddy
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Creating Better Experiences For Occupational Therapists’ Bathroom Assessments

Creating Better Experiences For Occupational Therapists’ Bathroom Assessments

We love our occupational therapist community. They are doing incredible work for families every day, helping to carve out a path to more fulfilling daily lives for those with mobility challenges. Showerbuddy works very closely with occupational therapists in many ways – we help supply them with great bathroom solutions for their clients and we speak with them about their clients’ needs to evolve our products continuously. 
But there’s an element of an OT’s daily life that we found to be time consuming and not as easy as it could be. In the spirit of empowering OTs to provide their best solutions to clients, we sought to do what we do – creating a solution.

 

In this article we’re going to explain what Showerbuddy is doing to help occupational therapists provide a more seamless home assessment for their client – and help their business in the process.  

The importance of home assessment

The home assessment is a fundamental aspect to an occupational therapists’ job. They will follow a thorough process of determining the client’s house suitability for their current and future mobility support needs.
Daily life can be made easier or harder for individuals depending on how well their home is set up. OTs will also determine the right equipment for their clients based on their home – which includes their bathroom.

 

All of our OTs who recommend Showerbuddy conduct in-home assessments in their work. 

What occupational therapists usually need to do

During home assessments (there may be multiple visits in some cases), the OT will meet with the client and their family, and start to develop the daily and weekly plan. They’ll likely take photos of the space, measure up spaces, doorway and distances. The OT will create many notes that they later go through and tidy up into a report and ultimately a plan. 
The OTs will often do multiple home assessments in a day when it’s busy, so the demand on creating clear organised notes is high. 

 

Each bathroom is different in its dimensions and layouts, so getting an accurate set of specifications will be really important when determining which solution is best for their needs. 

The opportunities of reducing assessment travel and report time

As we’ve been talking to our OTs throughout the years and supplying them with resources like assessment templates, product specs and reactive support, we’ve come to learn all the questions and considerations they make when assessing the bathroom. 
We also learned of the difficulty of travelling around during periods during lockdown. And when OTs can travel, the time it takes to measure up a bathroom and create a set of useful data to make an assessment is significant. 

 

That’s when Showerbuddy started to realise – the home assessment process, as critical as it is, is demanding too much of OT’s time and effort. What if they could cut this time down significantly, and capture all their bathroom photos, notes and specs in one organised place – digitally? And what if we had a solution where we could even guide a family member through a bathroom measure up to determine what solution is right for them?

Enter BathCheck.

Building the solution – our goals for BathCheck

We realised that like our bathroom chairs, Showerbuddy was the one to solve these OT home assessment challenges.

Drawing upon our knowledge of the OT and family challenges with finding the right solution, we devised an app that would guide users easily through a visual wizard-style experience that would clearly state what measurements to take in the bathroom and ask several questions to provide recommended a Showerbuddy solution.

BathCheck will do much more than this though:

  • It provides recommendations on specific accessories needed to get the best fit.
  • It allows OTs (or any user) to take photos of  the bathroom, alongside the measurements and notes and store this – perfect for OTs doing multiple assessments during a trip.
  • It provides access to detailed product information, which allows OTs to showcase the range of Showerbuddy to clients in a beautiful interface.
  • The results of the assessment can be emailed and used as the basis of an order.
After a version 1 in 2021, we launched the new version mid 2022 with an updated design and full host of features. Available for iOS, Android and Web, the app won us the ATSA Independent Living Expo Award ‘Australian Innovation of the Year’. 

How BathCheck is changing the work lives of busy OTs

BathCheck is already making a huge impact for OTs and mobility retailers. They’re reporting back to us that they’re spending far less time measuring up and more time speaking with their clients about their requirements. The interactions they have are much more valuable now, and they’re not missing any key measurements thanks to the guided nature of BathCheck. 
For OTs that have clients who live far away, they’re able to get a family member to conduct measurements virtually and provide pre-assessment recommendations on the best solution. This is helping to speed up the time between families learning about Showerbuddy and the chair being installed and used in their home. 

 

We’ve found that the new version of Showerbuddy is also helping to educate OTs more on the benefits of the range, and they can pull up specifications instantly for reference. 

Put simply, BathCheck is solving the problems we identified our OTs were having – and much more.

Try BathCheck for free

You don’t have to be an occupational therapist to use BathCheck. Mobility equipment retailers and families can also download the app from the App Store for iOS or Google Play Store for Android.

These plans typically require a number of weeks to get used to each activity whether that’s bathroom use or travel. It can be a challenge early on as family and the individual learn the ways in which to navigate things. Don’t assume the plan is wrong too early – but as we’ve said, keep communication up with the OT as they may make slight tweaks to suit based on live feedback.

Further reading

Enjoyed this article? You may be interested in these resources online:

The information in this article is intended as general information only and is not a replacement for official health guidance by your local medical providers. Please always consult an occupational therapist and/or local healthcare for more specific guidance.

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