Senior & Disabilities Services

Critical Incident Reporting

SDS assures the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) that recipients of Medicaid home and community-based waiver services are safe and healthy in their homes and communities.  Critical incident reporting by providers of waiver services is one important way of carrying out this mandate. 

The collection and aggregation of critical incident data allows SDS to track trends, identify and evaluate systemic problems and address problems experienced by provider agencies.  In addition, critical incident reporting offers the opportunity for greater communication between providers and SDS and provides a channel for technical assistance.

Provider agencies develop and operate internal incident reporting and management systems, and contribute to SDS quality assurance by reporting incidents involving specified circumstances that occur during the provision of services.  Provider systems include incident reporting policies and procedures, staff training, analysis of the factors leading to reportable incidents, and implementation of procedures to address identified risks to recipient health and safety.

The SDS Critical Incident Reporting and Management policy:

  • Defines responsibilities for incident reporting and management;
  • Describes the required elements of a provider agency incident reporting and management system;
  • Describes the process SDS follows for collecting relevant data for analysis to improve the quality of SDS and provider agency operations.

 

Please note:  SDS staff are in the process of amending the Critical Incident and Management policy to include recipient mortality review as well as other changes required in the CMS Plan of Correction.

Please send questions or comments to  hss.dsdsqa@alaska.gov

 

Links