title: A Descriptive Analysis of Incidents Reported by Community Aged Care Workers.
abstract: Little is known about the types of incidents that occur to aged care clients in the community. This limits the development of effective strategies to improve client safety. The objective of the study was to present a profile of incidents reported in Australian community aged care settings. All incident reports made by community care workers employed by one of the largest community aged care provider organizations in Australia during the period November 1, 2012, to August 8, 2013, were analyzed. A total of 356 reports were analyzed, corresponding to a 7.5% incidence rate per client year. Falls and medication incidents were the most prevalent incident types. Clients receiving high-level care and those who attended day therapy centers had the highest rate of incidents with 14% to 20% of these clients having a reported incident. The incident profile indicates that clients on higher levels of care had higher incident rates. Incident data represent an opportunity to improve client safety in community aged care.
authors.affiliation: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia amina.tariq@mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Amina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tariq
authors.affiliation: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Heather E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Douglas
authors.affiliation: UnitingCare Ageing NSW/ACT, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Georgiou
authors.affiliation: UnitingCare Ageing NSW/ACT, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Tracey
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Osmond
authors.affiliation: UnitingCare Ageing NSW/ACT, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Pauline
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Armour
authors.affiliation: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Johanna I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Westbrook
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001315:Australia; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends*; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D012308:Risk Management; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*
keywords: care workers; community aged care; community care; home care; incident-reporting system; patient safety