Incident management
Incident management is an important component of the NSW Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Program. A statewide incident management system was introduced in 2004. This incident management system is supported by a statewide electronic incident system, the Incident Information Management System (IIMS). IIMS is implemented under a policy framework to guide the notification, prioritisation, investigation, analysis and action and feedback of health care incidents using the Severity Assessment Code (SAC).
All serious clinical (SAC 1) incidents are reported to the NSW Department of Health via a Reportable Incident Brief (RIB) process and are investigated in detail using the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methodology.
Since 1 August 2005, legislation has required all Clinical SAC 1 incidents to be investigated using the RCA methodology.
Seven Steps to Incident Management
- Identification
- Notification in the Incident Information Management System (IIMS)
- Prioritisation using the SAC Matrix
- Investigation
- Analysis and action
- Classification
- Feedback