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 Ministry 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.
The sixth Bi-Annual Report Incident Management in the NSW Public Health System
July - December 2009 was released in June 2011.
View other Incident Reports
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
The Guide to Incident Management provides guidance on the seven steps.