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Background
The First Nations and Inuit Home and Community Care (FNIHCC) Program was approved by the Federal government in 1999 to provide basic home and community care services to people with disabilities, persistent or acute illnesses and the elderly.
The program aims to maintain optimum health, well-being and independence of the target groups, develop and deliver culturally sensitive, effective and accessible home care services while facilitating effective use of homecare resources.
It also intends to deliver home care services through training; technology and information systems which help monitor care and service delivery as well as develop measurable indicators. The importance of an accident/incident reporting policy for this community has been conceived.
Incident management may be defined as the identification, analysis and correction of dangers as part of the daily tasks in an organization.
The exercise aims to bring back normality in operations within the shortest time possible to reduce the level of harm and effect on normal operations and service delivery ensuring availability of service and standards of quality in a similar fashion as before the happening of the incident (Chen, Chen, and Li, 2012, p. 35).
There are various ways of receiving information from clients as part of quality assurance.
These include recording of complaints and incident reports, which are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that quality control measures in care and service delivery are taken with due diligence followed to measure performance by staff.
This paper will explore policy formulation for incidence reporting for the First Nations Home and Community Care program.
Scope and Severity of Problem
All accidents and/or incidents that result in personal injury or illness or even damage to property need to be reported and investigated.
The scope of incidents includes those that result in work-related injuries, or illness of organizational employees, non-injury events that have potential to cause harm or damage as well as damage to property belonging to the organization.
Reporting incidents and/or occurrences on a timely basis is a proactive measure to minimize the happening of similar or related incidents in future.
While investigating a reported incident may be deemed as a reactive process, it is essential to single out the source causes of such accidents/incidents and put in place mitigations in the event such occur in the future.
Full implementation of a formalized occurrence reporting system within First Nation Communities will help to identify, reduce or eliminate risks to its property, interests and employees, as well as minimize and contain costs and consequences in the event of harmful or damaging incidents arising from those risks.
It will also provide for adequate and timely compensation, restoration, and recovery.
An appropriate operational procedure is established when there is a formalized and well-organized incident reporting and investigation process that ensures accidents are accurately reported on timely basis with all causes identified and critically analyzed independent of type and source and with an aim to put in place appropriate corrective actions for future use in case similar or related incidents reappear.
Failure to put in place a comprehensive incident reporting and investigation system will not only increase the risk and probability of happening of similar and/or related incidents in the future, but will also compromise the level of preparedness of the organization to deal with similar occurrences in future as part of disaster management program (Hotson, Macdonald & Martin 2004, p.33).
There is a need to emphasize on the importance of incident/accident management through mandatory formal reporting and investigation procedures to bridge the existing knowledge and capacity gap and minimize risks associated with daily work and life processes at individual and community levels.
The importance of putting in place a clear policy on incident and/or accident management in any organization or society where people co-exist and work together cannot be overemphasized.
The positive results of successful implementation of this initiative include greater preparedness and enhanced ability by authorities and society to handle similar incidents in future and increased capacity to minimize the risks associated with the happening of such events.
A proper investigative procedure in place will provide adequate and useful information on the risks associated with accidents and incidents and provide input in packaging comprehensive preventive measures (Dunn, 2008, p.12).
Through incident reporting, various information sources are used to design comprehensive measures to prevent future reoccurrences of incidents or accidents. Under the Delphi approach, analysts can use several types of information items generating different evaluation scales.
Informational items may fall under goal items, issue items, or forecasting items. Scenarios that may be derived from the various informational items may be classified as desirability, feasibility (potential) and probability (expected) scenarios.
Technological advancements have led to the emergence of Web-based Delphis platform where there is larger participation by different groups, including experts and community members.
This even supports to a greater extent the efficiency and effectiveness of incident reporting and encourages policymaking that is interactive and democratic.
Development of an incident management policy through this approach will yield good results and increase acceptance among community members while establishing a consistent methodology of reporting and documenting of incidents to inform measures for prevention.
With this setup, it will be easy to identify immediate occurrence of incidences and tackle them with ready solutions while at the same time empowering the authorities and the community to take charge to lessen chances of reoccurrence.
The success of the occurrence reporting initiative will largely depend on the participation of the authorities, key stakeholders and members of the community as well.
These may include people like the chief and councilors in the First Nations communities, staffs in charge of home care, families and clients.
There should be an analysis of the community profile in terms of needs assessment, plan for service delivery, any changes among staffs in charge of home and community care and changes in the council committee (Kain, 2011, p.120). These must be updated on a regular basis.
The goals and objectives of a policy on incident management such as the one for First Nations, Homecare and community program may be stated as follows:
- Establish a consistent avenue of reporting and recording occurrences so that preventative measures can be put in place to decrease or eliminate reoccurrences.
- Identify immediate occurrences with solutions for change and to alleviate future ones.
Formalized occurrence reporting policy will achieve positive results within the organization and also to those involved with the occurrences who demand action and resolutions. To achieve positive results, it is expected that reported occurrences will be addressed with professionalism and in a timely manner.
Some of the solutions outlined under the program include but not limited to injury prevention, food security and nutrition, HIV/AIDS and sexual health, immunization, health literacy, mental health and wellness, suicide prevention, minimization of tobacco use, information management through e-health, addressing primary care and health benefits as well as provision of quality care and services.
There are also targets towards reduction and prevention of family violence, putting in place an Aboriginal Health Human Resources Initiative (AHHRI), setting up of the First Nations Health Managers Association (FNHMA), dealing with public health particularly diseases such as Cancer, TB, Asthma and Lung illness as well as pandemic planning and emergency preparedness.
In the process of putting the policy in place, the implementers must be cognizant of specific constraints that may arise such as lack of adequate funding to make it a success, lack of political goodwill from different quarters of the community targeted whom might disapprove of the policy and swear to kill its successful implementation.
It is also important to recognize environmental and staff constraints which may arise during the policy implementation process. The political environment must also be in support of such a policy on people/community welfare.
Failure to ensure that the political class is fully represented and made aware of the planned policy may render the whole process unfeasible (Maxfield, 1999, p.141).
An effective incident management policy has to take into account key elements such as identification of policy to be followed and clearly stating commitment to it, planning, executing the planned actions as well as measuring and evaluating performance of the program.
To ensure improvement for the better, the incident reporting system must be reviewed on a regular basis and this task must involve the leadership of the organization.
The planning process would generally involve consultations with different parties and stakeholders, risk management as well as information, instruction and training. Implementation entails incidence treatment and management, claims management as well as incident reporting, investigation, analysis and review.
To carry out effective checks on the performance of the program, it is essential to conduct monitoring and evaluation of performance. This will help to track whether the desired standards as well as levels of performance are being met in the set timelines with the amount of resources allocated.
Finally, review and improvement entails revising the incidence management system to determine whether the desired outcomes are being achieved, if not, improve for the better.
Incident monitoring and evaluation would involve ensuring that all incidents are reported, registered, triaged and resolved. The incident is then closed and a post-analysis made to make proposals for improvements (Elais & Neil, 2006, p.44).
Under incident resolving, there is data analysis, resolution research to propose actions which will then be performed as an eradication or recovery measure. Final information gathering is carried out before incident classification then archiving done before post-analysis.
In the course of the implementation process, there are certain limitations that may come up, including but not limited to funding shortfalls, unprecedented gaps in meeting reporting guidelines by the community and the implementing authorities.
Some of the unintended consequences include reoccurrence of similar incidents and/or accidents even with the comprehensive and formalized reporting system in place.
Additionally, there could be dire consequences, including deaths if preventive measures specified in the policy do not see the light of day when accidents happen.
Conclusion
In any organization or set up with people, there are possibilities of accidents and incidents calling for a management strategy to resolve. Incident management is defined as the identification, analysis and correction of dangers as part of the daily tasks in an organization.
The exercise aims to bring back normality in operations within the shortest time possible to reduce the level of harm and effect on normal operations and service delivery ensuring that availability of service and standards of quality continue in a similar fashion as before the happening of the incident.
Full implementation of a formalized and working occurrence reporting system within First Nation Communities will help to identify, and reduce or eliminate risks to its property, interests and employees, as well as minimize and contain costs and consequences in the event of harmful or damaging incidents arising from those risks.
It will also provide for adequate and timely compensation, restoration and recovery. Under the Delphi approach, analysts can use several types of information items generating different evaluation scales. Informational items may fall under goal items, issue items or forecasting items.
Scenarios that may be derived from the various informational items may be classified as desirability, feasibility (potential) and probability (expected) scenarios.
The success of the occurrence reporting initiative will largely depend on the participation of the authorities, key stakeholders and members of the community as well.
The goals and objectives of a policy on incident management such as the one for First Nations, Homecare and community program may include establishing a consistent avenue of reporting and recording occurrences so that preventative measures can be put in place to decrease or eliminate reoccurrences and identifying immediate occurrences with solutions for change and to alleviate future ones.
Reference List
Chen, A., Chen, N., and Li, J. (2012). During-Incident Process Assessment in Emergency Management: Concept and Strategy. Safety Science, 50(1): 90–102.
Dunn, W. N. (2008). Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Elais, B. & Neil, O. (2006). The Manitoba First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research: knowledge translation with Indigenous communities. Healthc Policy; 1(4): 44–49.
Hotson, K., Macdonald S., & Martin B. (2004). Understanding Death and Dying In Select First Nations Communities in Northern Manitoba: Issues of Culture and Remote Service Delivery in Palliative Care. Int J Circumpolar Health, 63(1):25-38.
Kain, J. (2011). EMERGENCY! How to Build a Document Unit for Hazardous Incident Response. Web.
Maxfield, G. (1999). The National Incident-Based Reporting System: Research and Policy Applications. Journal of Quantitative Criminology; Vol. 15 Issue 2, p119-149.
Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?
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We assure you a quality paper that is 100% free from plagiarism and AI.
You can choose either format of your choice ( Apa, Mla, Havard, Chicago, or any other)
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