Critical Incident Reporting

What is a Critical Incident

According to Bill C17, a critical incident is an unintended event that occurs when health services are provided to an individual and results in a consequence to him or her that:

a) is serious and undesired, such as death, disability, injury or harm, unplanned admission to hospital or unusual extension of hospital stay, and
b) does not result from the individual’s underlying health condition or from a risk inherent in providing the health services

There are 4 criteria that must be met before an incident is classified as a "critical incident." They are:

a) Unintended event causing serious harm
b) Occurs during provision of health services
c) Not result of underlying condition
d) Not result of risk inherent in providing health services

If you have noticed a critical incident, please call the WRHA Critical Incident Reporting Line at 788-8222.

What happens next?

A WRHA Patient Safety Consultant will be assigned to conduct a preliminary review to determine if the reported incident meets the criteria of a critical incident. If the incident meets the criteria of a critical incident, then an investigation led by the WRHA Patient Safety Consultant will take place. Usually, patients and their family (if needed) are interviewed as part of the investigation. At the conclusion of the investigation, a meeting will be arranged to review the findings with the patient and their family.

We want to learn from critical incidents. The findings and recommendations are also shared within the WRHA.

If the incident does not meet the Bill C 17 criteria of a critical incident, then we will conduct a review of the incident as we do for other issues of concern that are brought to our attention.

For more information on critical incident reporting please see the WRHA website http://www.wrha.mb.ca/healthinfo/patientsafety/criticalincident.php