An incident report in nursing is an essential part of a safety-minded culture in healthcare. Healthcare facilities with an effective incident reporting system help ensure that those affected get fair treatment and prevent future incidents. Attendance tracking is a feature of all healthcare facilities. Here are four ways to use your attendance system to help make a better incident report in nursing.
What is an incident report in nursing?
An incident report in nursing refers to the duty of every nurse to report any safety incident they have firsthand knowledge about. Nurses must perform “safety event reporting,” also called an “unusual occurrence report” or “variance report,” whenever there is:
- a new adverse event (e.g., a medical error or patient injury)
- a new awareness about an existing event (e.g., to improve patient safety)
- a near miss (e.g., risk management) or,
- an unexpected outcome (e.g., when filing incident reports protects nurses and patients).
Incident reporting is a tool for real-time collaboration; sharing assistance can save lives and limit the negative effects of incidents in a medical setting. Incident reporting is a fairly common event, with over 250,000 patients affected by adverse events annually.
Digitized attendance aids any incident report in nursing in 4 ways
A high reliability organization is meticulous about tracking nurses’ attendance records. It also constantly improves other aspects of patient safety as the organization tries to exceed the operations managers’ report obligations.
Better healthcare organizations use accurate nurse attendance records to reinforce nurses’ incident reports as follows:
1. Avoid event clusters
Accurate attendance reporting helps healthcare facilities prevent similar future incidents. Reporting with an accurate reference to timeframe helps identify incident “clusters” and trends, especially when a major incident is unfolding.
2. Give a better immediate response
Keeping an accurate historical record helps medical staff respond to the incident, improving patient safety. Attendance means you know who to ask for more information to fill in the gaps, and understanding how the incident built up often helps unravel the buildup to the event.
3. Record point of view for event analysis
During the review phase, the timeline is very helpful to nurse leaders by revealing who was on duty when the incident happened. Each timeline is one person’s point of view (POV), but an incident report can combine several POVs.
4. Provide evidence and advocacy for nurses
The nurse attendance record can provide support and advocacy for nurses. Since this information is already recorded this may encourage reporting among nurses.
The attendance record can indicate the following:
- A nurse was not on duty and was not involved at all
- A nurse was on duty and was involved in negligence
- A nurse missed attendance and was indirectly responsible
- A nurse was summoned to a different department.
Types of incidents that nurses should report
A nursing incident report must be made in any situation with potential injury or adverse events. Nurses and healthcare professionals must report incidents to their direct managers, who can escalate them as needed to the safety and operations managers.
Nursing incident report examples:
- Incident reports are required each time a patient makes a complaint.
- Medical errors and adverse events mandate incident reports
- Following an alarm fatigue event where the alarm sounded, the staff did not respond.
- incident reports are produced when a medical device malfunctions
- incident reports are necessary when anyone is injured (including patient, member of staff, or visitor)
- incident reports are used by internal and external officials when anyone suffers property damage or loss
Examples of events requiring an incident report in nursing
A patient incident report would be required for:
- a patient’s fall
- Patient or staff possession was stolen while in the hospital
- patient misidentification
- medication errors
- incorrect diagnosis
- digression from protocols
12 details that an incident report in nursing must include:
Incident reporting in healthcare must include as many answers to important questions as it can. The standard incident report format includes the following relevant details:
- Date of event
- Time incident occurred
- Medical department
- Location of event
- Personal and witness statements
- Details about who was harmed
- Evidence of environmental damage
- Relevant weather factors
- Details of nurse qualification or work permit
- Assessment of damage to possessions
- Relevant evidence, such as photos and documentation
- Answers to W questions (what, where, when, why, and how).
Why are incident reports important for healthcare facilities?
Incident reports keep healthcare facilities functioning, ensure they are safe for patient care and are accessible to all patrons, and ensure compliance with U.S. and World Health Organization health and safety directives.
Reporting incidents helps healthcare facility management discover and understand the significant problems in the workplace. Leaders can then develop improved processes and safe procedures for nurses, medical personnel, patients, and anyone else connected to the healthcare facility.
One hospital, Florida’s Celebration Health, used location sensors to help nurses see where most energy was being drained. However, newer tracking methods can complement existing digital tracking systems that support nurse activities. Nurse attendance tracking is one method that all health facilities have and can use to help nurses improve incident reporting in healthcare.
How Dropstat supports effective incident reports in healthcare facilities
Dropstat is an AI-powered nurse scheduling app that raises schedule-making to a new level. Dropstat makes safe nursing a reality in every healthcare facility by offering healthcare leaders a tool to schedule nurses with greater reliability and accuracy.
Dropstat’s attendance-tracking feature offers confidence in nurse attendance tracking by making it easy for nurses to report attendance through the online attendance app. This increases nurse focus on attendance and accountability.
Nurse schedulers can then organize and access nurse attendance reports at the touch of the screen. Through meticulous, accurate digital schedules, nurse attendance is documented and archived, becoming crystal clear and evidence-worthy, supporting accurate incident reporting.
Schedule a demo with Dropstat now to see how digitized nurse attendance can improve incident reporting in nursing for your facility.
