NASDDDS Issues Report on Incident Management and Mortality Reporting in Select State I/DD Systems

NASDDDS has recently issued a report on the Incident Management Systems and Mortality Reporting in Select State Intellectual/Developmental Disability Systems.  As described in the report, there was a series of issues that arose that prompted attention on the quality of HCBS across the country, which prompted NASDDDS to undertake the study to identify strong state practices, replicable in State I/DD programs across the country. 

State DD agencies use multiple approaches to track, measure, and analyze the status of individual and collective health and well-being. More than a compliance exercise, states use multiple approaches towards protecting, preventing and continuously monitoring for indicators of abuse, neglect or mistreatment of their citizens with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  This report provides highlights of the activities of twelve states, and a self assessment tool for states interested in assessing  the thoroughness of  both the design and execution of the system in place for identifying, reporting, intervening, preventing and responding to critical incidents.

The report is comprised of two sections.  Part I describes the review process undertaken by NASDDDS during the spring and early summer of 2017 for twelve state Intellectual/Developmental Disability Management systems, and the results and recommendations subsequent to the review.  According to the report, “the review was undertaken with the intent of learning about current practice and identifying opportunities for shared learning.” 

Part II is a self-assessment tool, available to assist states to review and assess the strength of strategies used in managing activities and utilizing information within their broad incident management systems.  The insight and understanding gained during the review was useful in identifying promising practices and developing the selfassessment tool for use by state agencies.  The report describes the self-assessment tool’s design as providing a state I/DD agency with an understanding of what currently exists, and will give a view of the gaps in the existing system.      

The report includes observations, promising practices and a self assessment that states can use to evaluate their system.