Incident Reporting and Quality Improvement

Who should take it

All employees. Supervisors and quality staff have added responsibilities for review and follow-up.

National course on incident reporting and quality improvement principles. State licensing rules and accreditors define reportable events and deadlines; follow your organization's incident reporting policy.

What employees will learn

• ✓Identify adverse events, near misses, medication errors and other safety incidents.
• ✓Report incidents promptly through the right channel.
• ✓Write factual, objective incident reports.
• ✓Explain just culture and the difference between system problems and individual choices.
• ✓Describe how root cause analysis and quality improvement use incident data.
• ✓Keep incident reports confidential and separate from the clinical record as policy directs.

Topics covered

• •Adverse events
• •Near misses
• •Medication errors
• •Safety incidents
• •Reporting procedures
• •Quality improvement
• •Corrective action
• •Confidentiality
• •Staff accountability

Sources this course is based on

• CMS conditions of participation for community mental health centers: quality assessment and performance improvement (42 CFR 485.917) · eCFR
• AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet): incident reporting, just culture and root cause analysis primers · HHS
• Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act regulations (patient safety work product) (42 CFR Part 3) · eCFR
• FDA MedWatch: reporting adverse events and medication errors · Other