NY PUB HEALTH § 2805-l

Hospital Incident Reporting

All hospitals are required to report certain incidents to the department.  These include:

• Patients' deaths or impairments of bodily functions in circumstances other than those related to the natural course of illness, disease or proper treatment in accordance with generally accepted medical standards;
• Fires in the hospital which disrupt the provision of patient care services or cause harm to patients or staff;
• Equipment malfunction during treatment or diagnosis of a patient which did or could have adversely affected a patient or hospital personnel;
• Poisoning occurring within the hospital;
• Strikes by hospital staff;
• Disasters or other emergency situations external to the hospital environment which affect hospital operations; and
• Termination of any services vital to the continued safe operation of the hospital or to the health and safety of its patients and personnel, including but not limited to the anticipated or actual termination of telephone, electric, gas, fuel, water, heat, air conditioning, rodent or pest control, laundry services, food or contract services.

The hospital must conduct an investigation of any incidents described above within 30 days of obtaining knowledge of any information that reasonably appears to show that such an incident has occurred.  The hospital will provide to the department a copy of the investigation report within 24 hours of completion.