Aged Care Incident Management now more aligned with NDIS

The Serious Incident Response Scheme for aged care had recent updates, including the addition of a new indicator to the Aged Care Quality Standards, incident management in aged care has become more closely aligned with the NDIS Practice Standards.

As a result of these developments, we’ll take a closer look at what incident management looks like.

What exactly is incident management

An incident management system's overall aim is to reduce the risk of harm to clients, workers, and members of the community. This process should be integrated into your quality improvement practices. To minimise the likelihood that the incident will occur again, begin by documenting and communicating your approach; ensure all workers respond and resolve the incident in the same way; and end with a review, learning and improvement process.

The documentation of the process

In order for all employees to know what to do in the event of an incident, the policy and procedure documents in your incident management system should be accessible to all employees when an incident occurs.

Training and communication

In order for workers to take part in incident management procedures, they must receive training related to incidents. Additionally, they must learn how to respond to an incident if they witness one.

Your induction process should include the training, as well as ongoing training. The workers must know how to identify incidents that occur, even if they are low-risk so that they can respond appropriately. They should also understand the procedures to follow, and which staff members to notify after an incident occurs.

In order to ensure that all incidents that occur in connection with service delivery are quickly identified and resolved, it's important to have a clear definition of what constitutes an incident (including errors and omissions).

Additionally, you should have a priority rating system for incidents, as this will help categorize the severity of each and provide appropriate responses. An example of this is the Aged Care Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) which has an integrated priority system that assigns incidents a Priority 1 or 2 rating depending on their severity.

When a reportable incident occurs, or is alleged to have occurred in connection with the supports or services you deliver, you must notify authorities using the My Aged Care service provider portal (for aged care) or NDIS Commission Portal (for NDIS) within the required timeframes.

Managing an incident

Recognising and responding

After an incident, the primary focus is on ensuring the safety of the client and the community. In cases of a serious incident, it is often necessary to contact emergency services. Regardless of how minor an incident is, it must be treated seriously and should be handled according to the organization's incident management procedures. Minor incidents can have serious implications for clients as well as the organisation's processes.

Processes for notifying

In the aftermath of an incident, workers should notify senior management so that they can determine what to do next, which may include informing families/guardians/advocates early on.

Providers of aged care and disability services are mandated to report serious incidents that occur while providing their services to the relevant government agency.

Aged care providers, as well as disability providers, must designate a staff member within their organisation to notify the relevant Commission within a specific timeframe in an approved format.

Investigation and assessment

As a result of an incident, an organisation must assess its severity and determine whether a formal internal investigation is needed.

The organisation should conduct a formal investigation if the incident is serious, in order to determine:

· What caused the incident

· What was the effect of the incident

· Processes within an organisation that contributed to or failed to prevent the incident

· Potential changes that can be made to prevent further incidents

· In the event of future incidents, what remedial action must be taken to prevent or minimise the impact

· An organisation's incident management system's effectiveness in responding to the incident

Supporting the affected

The organisation must support the people affected by the incident, whether they are clients, employees, or community members, by providing support, access to counselling or trauma services, or changing services.

A major aspect of incident management is to keep people affected by the incident informed about the response and resolution progress. Incidents should be managed according to open disclosure principles.

The resolution

Taking remedial action following an incident may be necessary in some cases. Remedial action may range from issuing an apology to offering financial compensation. To ensure that everyone is satisfied with the outcome of an incident management process, it is important to involve those affected in the resolution process.

Improvements and record-keeping

Record-keeping

Record-keeping is central to the process of incident management and resolution. For providers of aged care, disability, record-keeping is a requirement. Maintaining accurate and detailed records is a crucial part of managing incidents in a continuous manner.

Continuous Improvement

In the context of incident management and resolution, maintaining records is essential. That's why aged care and disability support providers must keep records. The assessment and investigation stages of each incident should be used to determine if any process failures need to be addressed and whether any organisational processes are in need of review.

Workers and organisations need to understand that incident management systems aren't just there to reduce the risk associated with incidents, but also to prevent them altogether.