How to get started

IAHSS has developed the Incident Categories, Framework and Glossary of Terms to allow healthcare organizations to establish a more standardized and consistent approach to the collection and categorization of security incidents within healthcare. 

The goal is to improve the ability to statistically compare from healthcare facility to healthcare facility while driving evidence-based (data-driven) decision-making that supports the maintenance of a safe environment, the implementation of best practices, the growth of security program initiatives, and the implementation of safety and security-related mitigations.

Why Data Matters:

If healthcare facilities across North America uploaded incident data in exactly the same terms and format to a central database, individual facilities could easily benchmark their performance against that of other facilities and identify areas needing improvement.  Meanwhile, the collected data would reveal trends of concern to all and facilitate evidence-based decision-making. 

Historically, the field of healthcare security has lacked data and analytics to guide decisions about how to best design security programs and assess their performance and effectiveness- often rendering decision-making more an art than a science.   

Tools to Get Started:

To support healthcare security leaders in making evidence-based decisions, IAHSS is building such a database and has released three documents to guide and facilitate participation.  

• IAHSS Healthcare Security Industry Guideline 01.05.02:  Incident Categories and Data Analysis to provide advice on what security incident and activity data should be collected and monitored by healthcare security programs.
  

• The framework document, Incident Category and Data Collection Framework , is intended to enable healthcare facilities to capture security incidents in a consistent way and to make the framework readily adaptable to every healthcare facility or system in North America regardless of its security program size, resources, or security risks faced.
  
  
• The IAHSS Glossary of Terms a companion to the healthcare security incident category framework as well as an aid to understanding the phrases and abbreviations commonly used by the healthcare security industry.

Connect with a Mentor:

Contact IAHSS to be put in touch with members who have successfully implemented the new framework and troubleshot some of the challenges faced.