Goal setting in rehabilitation
Understand a patient's abilities, limitations, and environment to set goals that are achievable, meaningful, and aligned with their personal priorities.
Goal setting in rehabilitation
A Foundation for Recovery
Goal setting provides the structured framework that guides both patient and team, keeping rehabilitation efforts focused and aligned with the patient's unique needs and circumstances
Patient-Centred by Design
Goals are built around the individual's priorities, values, and desired outcomes — ensuring recovery is personally meaningful and motivating the patient to take an active role.
Measurable Milestones
Well-defined goals serve as trackable progress markers, giving both the patient and the rehabilitation team clear evidence of improvement throughout the journey.
Aligned Team, Better Outcomes
Shared goals create a common understanding across the interdisciplinary team, enabling coordinated care that addresses key challenges and promotes meaningful progress.
GAS goals
Kompass uses Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) goals within the platform, an evidence-backed approach to rehabilitation goal setting. Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) is a method of scoring and tracking individual goals throughout an intervention. It provides a standardised yet flexible approach to outcome measurement by considering the uniqueness of each individual's goals. It accounts for factors such as importance and difficulty in goal weighting, presenting a patient-centred approach to goals. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) allows detail about a patient's goal progress to be tracked, giving them more motivation to engage in rehabilitation therapy (Wade, 2009)
GAS scores use a 5-point scale to measure goal attainment:
- +2Much better than expected level of achievement
- +1Somewhat better than expected level of achievement
- 0Expected level of achievement
- -1Somewhat worse than expected level of achievement
- -2Much worse than expected level of achievement
Additionally, each goal is rated for:
The importance rating 'weights' the goal in the final calculation. The composite GAS score is derived by summing attainment levels multiplied by relative weights, which is then converted into a standardised measure. This allows for quantitative tracking of goals and progress.
Getting Started with GAS Goals
Kompass guides clinicians through the GAS goal-setting process step by step — from defining a patient-centred goal to tracking attainment at each review. The platform handles the scoring and weighting automatically, giving you a standardised outcome measure with no manual calculation.
- 1
Define the Goal
Work with the patient to identify a personally meaningful, measurable goal that reflects their priorities and desired outcomes.
- 2
Set the Expected Outcome
Establish the baseline expected level of attainment (score 0) using realistic clinical judgement at the time of goal setting.
- 3
Rate Importance & Difficulty
Assign importance (0–3) and difficulty (0–3) ratings to weight the goal appropriately within the composite GAS score.
- 4
Track & Review
Score the goal using the -2 to +2 scale at each review point to quantify progress and generate a standardised outcome measure.
Steps to Effective Rehabilitation
- 1
Functional Assessment
Conduct a standardised ICF assessment using condition-specific core sets to establish the patient's baseline functional status.
- 2
Identify Problems
Review the scored ICF codes to surface the functional problems most relevant to the patient's rehabilitation needs.
- 3
Goal Setting
Set patient-centred rehabilitation goals that are specific, measurable, and directly tied to identified ICF problems.
- 4
Objective Setting
Break goals into short-term objectives and actionable steps that guide the day-to-day rehabilitation plan.
- 5
Reporting
Generate structured outcome reports from ICF reassessment data to evidence progress, support handovers, and inform future care planning.