

Types of patient incidents that may occur include: For example, a patient could be given a blood transfusion meant for another patient but no harm was done because the blood was compatible. For instance, a patient might get caught trying to leave the facility prematurely or trip but a nurse catches them before they fall.Ī no-harm incident means that something happened to a patient or another person but no discernible injury or illness resulted. For example, a patient could fall out of bed and break their arm or scratch a nurse as she takes their temperature.Ī near miss is when there was potential harm to a patient or another person was almost harmed but the situation was corrected before it occurred. Patient incidents are generally classified into one of three types.Ī harmful incident results in injury or illness to a patient or another person. Thus, all reports should be timely, complete and accurate.

Should a patient take legal action following their incident, a thorough incident report is the most important part of any defense. Similarly, current staff can review old reports to learn from their own or others’ mistakes and keep more incidents from occurring. Training. Using resolved patient incident reports to train new staff helps prepare them for real situations that could occur in the facility.Reviewing incident reports reveals areas that could be improved. Quality control. Medical facilities want to provide the best care and customer service possible.This reduces the risk of similar incidents in the future. Knowing that an incident has occurred can push administrators to correct factors that contributed to the incident. The information contained in the reports sheds light on measures that need to be taken to provide effective patient care as well as keep your facility running smoothly. Patient incident reports communicate information to facility administrators. RELATED: Near Miss Reporting: Why It’s Important

You may even want to file the report by the end of your shift to ensure you remember all the incident’s important details. Patient incident reports should be completed no more than 24 to 48 hours after the incident occurred.
TIMELY FILING PATIENT RESPONSIBILITY PROFESSIONAL
They should then be filed by the healthcare professional who witnessed the incident or by the first staff member who was notified about it. Reports are typically completed by nurses or other licensed personnel. A patient incident report, according to Berxi, is “an electronic or paper document that provides a detailed, written account of the chain of events leading up to and following an unforeseen circumstance in a healthcare setting.”
