Why collect more than just sentinel or extreme severity adverse events?
We can’t fix what we don’t know about High severity incidents (Level 1) that impact patients/clients/residents are currently being reported to the department through the Sentinel Event Program, Statewide Quality Branch. However there is no mechanism to pool lower severity incident data across the state due to variation in classification schemes and severity rating methodologies used from one health service to another. This variation was confirmed via the release of an incident reporting practices survey to all 88 acute health services in July 2006 (92% response rate). We know through previous data collections that common adverse events include falls and pressure ulcers. Projects have been initiated by both the department and health services to target these adverse events. It is possible however that there are other adverse events not yet considered commonly problematic because at a local health service level they may be considered ‘rare’. However if data can be aggregated at a state wi
