Incident Reporting and Monitoring
The Department of Developmental Services (DDS) takes very seriously the health and safety of the individuals who receive our services. There are Connecticut State Statutes that protect those the department serves and a series of policies and procedures that provide a method for reporting and monitoring any incidents.
What is Incident Reporting and Monitoring?
- Incident reporting and monitoring assures that the individuals are safe and free from preventable risks and injuries.
- Support staff and employees of DDS and DDS operated, funded, and/or licensed settings/programs are responsible for reporting any observed or discovered injury/incident as described in DDS policy and procedures.
What Are The Incidents That Need Reporting?
- There are four major categories of incidents that are required to be reported to DDS: injuries, unusual incidents, critical incidents and the use of restraints.
- Information on injuries, unusual incidents, critical incidents and the use of restraints is used by individual planning and support teams (PST) to develop a person’s individual plan (IP) and to help DDS to oversee the quality of services as well as identify and implement continual improvement activities.
How does the Incident Reporting System in the community based differ from the system used at Southbury Training School (STS)?
- The Incident Reporting and Follow-up systems are the same in community based programs as they are at STS.
- The same policy and procedures apply to the STS incident reporting process as in community based programs.
How are incidents reported?
- Incidents are reported using specific DDS forms.
- Support staff completes the forms and faxes or sends them to DDS regional offices to the attention of the Regional Director or designee.
- The regional offices date-stamp the forms and distribute to appropriate staff for review, data entry and follow-up.
- The Individual’s case manager receives a copy of each reported incident. The case manager reviews the incident report along with the Personal Support Team and files the report into the case file. The Individual Plan (IP) is revised when incident data reflects changes in the individual’s needs.
How is data on Incident Reports used?
- The individual’s case manager reviews the incident reports as they are received and at least every six months and whenever the Individual Plan (IP) is revised. The Individual’s Personal Support Team reviews these reports more formally. Based on the incident report information the IP is revised and includes activities for support staff to prevent such incidents in the future.
- The individual’s support staff reviews each incident at the time of reporting to be sure that steps are taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
- Once a year or as necessary, DDS staff compiles incidents for each individual and use this information when evaluating the performance of each provider. As needed the providers are asked to include a specific goal around incident prevention in their Quality Improvement Plans (QIPs). The QIPs are monitored by the provider and DDS staff on a regular basis.
How are incidents reported for individuals who live in their own or family homes?
- For individuals who live in their own or family homes incidents are also reported following specific DDS procedures.
- The reporting forms look a little different because only severe incidents are reported to DDS and the individual’s case manager.
- When the individual’s support staff is hired directly by the individual or family the staff is expected to report observed or discovered incidents to the case manager.
- When the individual’s support staff is hired from a provider agency the staff report incidents just as they would while working for the provider (see above).
- Review of the reported incidents by the case manager and the Personal Support Team and follow-up activities occur just as they do for individuals served by a qualified provider agency.