Safety is fundamental to the provision of healthcare, regardless of the mode of delivery.
All processes put in place to support safe in-person care also apply to virtual care. These include:
- undertaking risk assessments
- following mandatory reporting requirements
- reporting of incidents into the NSW Incident Management System (ims+) (NSW Health network or VPN required).
Clinicians must consider the Principles of Virtual Care to implement clinically safe, sustainable and successful virtual care.
- Each service should have a documented process outlining when a consultation must be aborted due to safety concerns for the consumer.
- Clinicians must feel confident to abort a consultation if they cannot safely continue to deliver care virtually after assessing consumer needs, or where the technology is not fit for purpose.
- Service-level processes and clinical judgement will determine the appropriateness of virtual care for minors and if parents or carers are required to be present.
- Risk assessment may also include processes to ensure clinicians have up-to-date contact details of the consumer before commencing an assessment, if needed for emergency services.
For further information on the core principles and considerations, refer to Virtual Care: embedding safety in practice.
Incidents related to virtual care are reported and escalated in the same way as for in-person care.
The Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) developed a framework for Embedding Virtual Care in Safety and Quality to ensure consumer safety and clinical quality are maintained when healthcare is delivered virtually.
When an incident occurs during a virtual care consultation, the NSW Health Incident Management Policy Directive PD2020_47 applies in the same way it does for in-person care. This means all staff are responsible for identifying incidents and taking immediate action to ensure the safety of consumers, visitors and other staff. All identified virtual care incidents must be reported, escalated and managed as per this directive.
There are quick reference guides for how to notify and manage an incident related to virtual care on the ims+ information site (NSW Health network or VPN required).
If you have any questions about incident management, please contact your health service manager. Resources on the NSW Health Incident Management Policy Directive are available on the CEC website.