Program Information
You Too Can Create Great Incident Reports!
B Miller1*, B Thomadsen2*, J Palta3*, (1) Henry Ford Health System, Clinton Township, MI, (2) University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, (3) Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Presentations
SU-A-BRA|B-0 (Sunday, March 19, 2017) 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Room: Ballroom A|B
An essential part of any quality assurance and patient safety program is the reporting of incidents that occur. However, as employees in Radiation Oncology, we do not generally receive training on what comprises a quality incident report. The challenge is that the best time to write the report is immediately after the event although a person with such training may not be available. Writing the narrative immediately after an event, when the details are most fresh in everyone’s mind, will ensure that an accurate incident report can be authored.
For incident reports to be useful for improving practice they must contain information pertinent to the event. Essential data elements are what happened, how it happened, the point in the patient care process when the event happened, and the personnel involved. Additional valuable information is whether or not the incident reached the patient; if it did not, it is important to know which safety barrier was able to prevent the event from reaching the patient. Incident reports should deliberately not assign blame or make assumptions in the narrative.
This session aims to provide information on how to generate a quality incident report that can be used for root cause analysis, policy and procedure updates and staff education.
Learning Objectives:
1. Importance of reporting incidents
2. Essential elements of incident reports for internal and external communication
3. How to write a quality narrative
4. How to identify and recommend improvements
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: Dr. Jatinder Palta acknowledges a Global Health Grant from NCI.
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