The Office of Mental Retardation has issued the finalized Incident Management (IM) Bulletin (#6000-04-01) which becomes effective February 28. The bulletin established the policy processes that will ensure the health and safety, enhance the dignity, and protect the rights of individuals receiving supports and services. The processes include uniform practices for:
- Building organizational policies and structures to support incident management
- Taking timely and appropriate action in response to incidents
- Reporting incidents
- Investigating incidents
- Taking corrective action in response to incidents, and
- Implementing quality improvement, risk management, and incident management processes for the analysis and interpretation of individual and aggregate incident data.
All reportable incidents are to be submitted electronically via the Home and Community Services Information System (HCSIS). If HCSIS is unavailable, agencies are to follow the directions in the Incident Management Contingency Plan (Appendix J).
Mental Retardation Bulletins that are now obsolete are:
- #00-01-05 Incident Management issued August 27, 2001;
- #00-02-02 Announcement of the IM Implementation Schedule and Contingency Plan issued March 1, 2002;
- #00-02-14 IM Interpretive Guideline issued October 29, 2002;
- #00-02-15 IM Interpretive Guideline: Hospital Discharge Instructions issued November 27, 2002.
A copy of the bulletin is available from the link. For additional information contact Linda Drummond at PCPA.