ISDH Incident Reporting – Changes Ahead

The ISDH will be unveiling changes to both the way and under what circumstances Incident Reports are to be made.  As reported earlier in the year, and via the ISDH Long Term Care Newsletter from May 1, 2015, the ISDH is making the online Incident Reporting System mandatory as of July 1, 2015.  The online system has been available and optional since May of 2014 and many improvements have been made over that year.  IHCA encourages you to read the above linked ISDH newsletter for detail regarding the online system.

In addition, the ISDH Incident Reporting Policy (formerly the Unusual Occurrences Policy) is undergoing major revision (click here for a DRAFT, which is not to be taken or used as the final version).  IHCA received this draft on May 22nd and has distributed it to the IHCA Regulatory/Clinical committee for comment, which were due to the ISDH on May 29th.  The draft revisions, which will be made final in June, signal a significant increase in reporting for nursing facilities and residential care facilities.  The revisions address many questions and uncertainties from the past policies, in terms of what is and what isn’t reportable, and err on the side of reporting more than reporting less.  Many facilities in the past few years have erred toward reporting “everything” rather than get caught for not reporting an issue that didn’t appear to be reportable at the time, but after complaint was found to be a reportable that was not made.   The draft revisions include information for residential care facilities as well, for the first time in one document.  In addition, the draft signals not only mandatory use of the online Incident Reporting System, but sole use of the online system except for cases of evacuation or events involving the Emergency Management Agency.