The role of the referring primary health professional

The first step in assessment of a whiplash injury is the conduct of a standard assessment.

Standard assessment has several purposes:

• to help screen patients with a fracture
• to assess level of pain and disability
• to determine if there is a neurological deficit
• to determine neck impairments and symptom response to guide treatment
• to improve patient compliance and allow standardisation of nomenclature used between health professionals.

The standard assessment is undertaken by a primary health professional as per usual practice.

Read more about standard assessment in the health professional portal.

Your role as a specialist

Patients assessed as medium to high risk require specialist assessment. Your role is to assimilate information received from a patient’s primary health professional and conduct your own additional assessments in order to formulate a patient-centred treatment plan.

You are encouraged to liaise and collaborate with the patient’s referring primary health professional at all times during your treatment planning.

This section provides useful information and resources on additional assessments that you may like to undertake with a patient assessed as medium to high risk. Click on the links to access information on these additional specialist assessments.