Easy Guide to Clinical Incident Management - Step 3. Prioritisation (SAC rating)
The Severity Assessment Code (SAC Matrix) is used to prioritise all notifications, and the SAC rating is assigned in the Incident Information Management System (IIMS). Contact your IIMS administrator if you need assistance using the system.
The SAC tool determines the level of response following notification of an incident. When applying the SAC score, you need to consider the actual outcome or consequence of the incident. For example, say a patient has slipped standing from the chair and sustains slight bruising of the forearm. In this case, the consequence will be minimal but had the patient sustained a hip fracture requiring surgery, then the consequence would be major or moderate.
Range of incidents in health care
If you are a manager...
... it is up to you to ensure that your staff know how to use the SAC Matrix. The notifier assigns the SAC rating in IIMS and the manager confirms it. The SAC rating guides the manager in prioritising which incident they handle first.A SAC 1 incident is of extreme risk and requires immediate action. A Reportable Incident Brief (RIB) must be sent to the NSW Department of Health within 24 hours and a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) must be initiated.
A SAC 2 incident is high risk and must be notified to senior management for detailed investigation.
Determine level of response for open disclosure
There are two levels of response: high level for a SAC 1 incident and low level for a SAC 2, SAC 3 or SAC 4 incident. Irrespective of the level of response to an incident, the patient must be fully informed within 24 hours of acknowledgement of the incident (see Step 7. Feedback for more).