200.02 Incident Reporting.pdf

St. Johns Fire District Standard Operating Guideline Subject: Incident Reporting & Quality Review Number: 200.02 Effective: 10/20/2023 Approved By: Chief Ryan Kunitzer Revised:...

St. Johns Fire District Standard Operating Guideline Subject: Incident Reporting & Quality Review Number: 200.02 Effective: 10/20/2023 Approved By: Chief Ryan Kunitzer Revised: Page: 1 of 4 Purpose: The purpose of this policy is to establish the minimum requirements for incident reporting by the St. John’s Fire District (STJFD). Objective: To have a standardized process for incident reporting and quality assurance review. Policy: 200.02 Incident Reporting – General It is the policy of the St. John’s Fire District that all incidents, regardless of duration or emergent status, will be assigned an incident number and promptly reported in the Fire District’s record management software. Smoke detector installations, and public service functions, such as tours, equipment demonstrations, etc are not to be assigned an incident number but instead logged as an activity under the appropriate classification. As a general guideline: All incident reports shall be completed during the shift of occurrence unless extenuating circumstances are present. The incident commander is responsible for the timely completion of the report. The on- duty Battalion Chief (or acting) should review all reports for their assigned battalion submitted during their tour of duty. Structure fire reports and medical emergencies shall be completed on the shift of occurrence for citizen and medical control access. Chief officer approval is required prior to leaving one of the above-listed reports incomplete past the end of the shift. All incidents shall be documented using ImageTrend reporting software. The report shall include all required fields in the software program as well as information obtained at the scene that is helpful in documenting the incident variables.  St. Johns Fire District Standard Operating Guideline Incident Reporting & Quality Review Policy Number: 200.02 Fire Incidents At fire incidents, incident commanders shall ensure that specific information relating to the origin, cause, and dollar loss is gathered if possible. Nearly all fire incidents will cause property loss and damage, it is imperative that this information be collected in the NFIRS report. In addition to the causal and damage-related data, the property owner and occupant information must be recorded. Members completing the reports shall pay careful attention to the various modules and required fields to ensure comprehensive and accurate data collection. Origin, cause, and other causal information shall be reviewed by the Fire Marshal’s office for accuracy during their review of the incident report. If cause and origin are unknown, or it cannot be determined at the company officer level, it should be listed as “undetermined.” Should the cause and origin be entered as undetermined, the member completing the report should notify the NFIRS program manager and Fire Marshal in writing so that follow-up can occur. There are several incident types that require a unit narrative for each unit (company) that responded to the incident. The unit narrative should be completed by the company officer (or acting) of that unit. The individual unit narrative should include the specific actions of that unit. Medical Incidents Medical incidents require strict privacy and confidentiality when dealing with personal information. Medical incidents present special challenges regarding patient data collection. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and company officers shall make all attempts to ensure the patient care record is entered correctly and accurately. The St. John’s Fire District utilizes the ImageTrend Records Management System (RMS) for the storage and maintenance of all fire department National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incident reports. A unique incident report is completed for each call for service to which the St. John’s Fire District deploys resources. Since staffing and resource allocation decisions are made based on the information and data that is collected in the NFIRS incident reports, it is critical that they be completed in an accurate and thorough manner. To ensure that all NFIRS incident reports are completed accurately the St. John’s Fire District shall utilize a three-tiered review process. 2|Page  St. Johns Fire District Standard Operating Guideline Incident Reporting & Quality Review Policy Number: 200.02 Review Process Level 1 Review Company Officers are responsible for reviewing all NFIRS incident reports that are completed by personnel at their assigned station. While it is important that the entire report be reviewed for completeness and accuracy, the Company Officer should pay particular attention that the following fields are entered correctly to facilitate accurate data collection: Aid Given or Received Specific Property Use Incident Type Shift Number of Alarms Response Times Actions Taken Units and Personnel Estimated Dollar Loss and Value Incident Narrative Fire and Structure Fire Modules Note: Reports for medical incidents should additionally be reviewed according to the process established by SOG 200.07 Patient Care Reporting and Quality Review. Level 2 Review The on-duty Battalion Chief (or acting) is responsible for ensuring that incident reports are completed for their battalion in a timely manner. Incident reports shall be completed during the same tour in which they occurred. All reports should be reviewed for completeness and accuracy, focusing on the previously outlined criteria. Upon completion of the Level 2 Review the Battalion Chief (or acting) shall change the status of the incident report to one of the following: Needs Revision – Any errors or issues identified should initiate this status. Once the status is changed the reviewer shall click the “message” button at the top of the incident report and complete the following: o Message Type (Documentation or Protocol Deviation should be chosen) 3|Page  St. Johns Fire District Standard Operating Guideline Incident Reporting & Quality Review Policy Number: 200.02 o Include the notes or description of what the issue is for the author to correct. Ensure that the message “To:” is to the original report writer. QA Complete – The review was completed, and all errors were corrected by the report author, or no errors were found. Note: Personnel must complete all outstanding incident reports before going off-duty unless specifically authorized to leave a report incomplete by the on-duty Battalion Chief or the NFIRS Program Manager. Level 3 Review The NFIRS Program Manager is responsible for completing a formal monthly quality improvement review of the NFIRS incident reports that have been completed in the ImageTrend Records Management System. The following NFIRS incident types are subject to formal review: All fire incidents All hazardous materials incidents All rescue incidents All marine incidents Any other incident at the discretion of the NFIRS Program Manager Once the Level 3 review is completed the incident status shall be changed to “Admin QA Complete.” Fire Marshal Review The Fire Marshal’s office shall review all NFIRS series 100 (Fire) incidents to ensure accuracy with cause, origin, content loss / value, and property loss / value. 4|Page