Filing an incident report | VA

Incident and Accident Reports

Unfortunately, there are profoundly serious incidents and accidents that will occur in your community no matter the precautions you take to avoid it. It could be as simple as a resident taking a fall while being involved in your activity programming all the way to an attack on a resident by a staff member or another resident. The Virginia D mandates reporting any incident that affects the health, safety, and wellbeing of a resident- check out the regulation below for how to handle these situations:

22VAC40-73-70. Incident reports.

  1. Each facility shall report to the regional licensing office within 24 hours any major incident that has negatively affected or that threatens the life, health, safety, or welfare of any resident.
  2. The report required in subsection A of this section shall include (i) the name of the facility, (ii) the name or names of the resident or residents involved in the incident, (iii) the name of the person making the report, (iv) the date of the incident, (v) a description of the incident, and (vi) the actions taken in response to the incident.
  3. The facility shall submit a written report of each incident specified in subsection A of this section to the regional licensing office within seven days from the date of the incident. The report shall be signed and dated by the administrator and include the following information:
  4. Name and address of the facility;
  5. Name of the resident or residents involved in the incident;
  6. Date and time of the incident;
  7. Description of the incident, the circumstances under which it happened, and, when applicable, the extent of injury or damage;
  8. Location of the incident;
  9. Actions are taken in response to the incident;
  10. Actions to prevent recurrence of the incident, if applicable;
  11. Name of a staff person in charge at the time of the incident;
  12. Names, telephone numbers, and addresses of witnesses to the incident, if any; and
  13. Name, title, and signature of the person making the report, if other than the administrator, and date of the completion of the report.
  14. The facility shall submit to the regional licensing office amendments to the written report when circumstances require, such as when substantial additional actions are taken, when significant new information becomes available, or there is the resolution of the incident after submission of the report.
  15. A copy of the written report of each incident shall be maintained by the facility for at least two years from the date of the incident.
  16. If applicable, the facility shall ensure that there is documentation in the resident’s record as required by 22VAC40-73-470 F.

Top Takeaway:

  • Each facility shall report to the regional licensing office within 24 hours any major incident that has negatively affected or that threatens the life, health, safety, or welfare of any resident.

This is one of those regulations where there is no grey area. Either you have completed the incident report within the designated time frame, or you did not. DOSS will have no mercy when it comes to life, health, or the welfare of residents.

Pro Tip:

The DOSS takes these matters very seriously. You do not want to be in a situation where you did not file an incident report and have a surveyor come in to investigate this incident based upon a complaint call. Be proactive, do not hide anything, and use these incident reports to continuously improve your practices.