Incident Reporting – Changes Ahead

The IHCA was given a preview of an online Incident Reporting System that is being developed by the Indiana State Department of Health.  The online system will be housed in the same area as the existing online Survey System.  The online Incident Reporting System mimics the existing Incident Report Form in terms of content and work flow.  Accessing the online Incident Report Form will be limited to those with a log-in and password to the Survey System, and facilities may have more than one person with such access.

The online form will allow a user to begin completing an incident report and save that progress without having to complete it in one sitting so that the user can return to the form to later complete it and submit the form.  In order to submit the form, the user will have to complete all fields except the ‘Follow-up’ field.  Once submitted, the user will be able to track all submitted incidents reported.  In addition, once an incident is submitted, the user will receive an email reminder to submit the required follow-up report 3-days after the incident is submitted, thereby helping the user comply with the 5-day follow-up requirement.  The online Incident Reporting System will not include or cover applicable Crimes Reporting requirements under the Elder Justice Act.  Reports of reasonable suspicions of crimes will still have to be reported separately, but the ISDH is working on a web-form for that process as well that will be housed on a publically accessible portion of the ISDH website.

The ISDH expects that it will test the online Incident Reporting System in October, with a live release in November, and then require mandatory use of the online system as of January 2014.