Severity Assessment Codes (SAC)
Before an investigation of a clinical incident can take place, a Severity Assessment Code (SAC) rating must be decided to determine the prioritisation of the clinical incident investigation.
Definition
There are three SAC categories:
- SAC 1 includes all clinical incidents/near misses where serious harm or death is/could be specifically caused by health care rather than the patient’s underlying condition or illness.
In WA, SAC 1 also includes the eight nationally endorsed sentinel event categories. - SAC 2 includes all clinical incidents/near misses where moderate harm is/could be specifically caused by health care rather than the patient’s underlying condition or illness.
- SAC 3 includes all clinical incidents/near misses where minimal or no harm is/could be specifically caused by health care rather than the patient’s underlying condition or illness.
Resources
- Clinical Incident Management Policy (PDF 1.59MB)
- Clinical Incident Management Toolkit (PDF 2.4MB)
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
- SAC Table (PDF 81KB)
Forms
- SAC 1 Clinical Incident Form (PDF) (PDF 192KB)
- SAC 1 Clinical Incident Form (Word) (Word 173KB)
- SAC 1 Clinical Incident Investigation Report (PDF) (PDF 577KB)
- SAC 1 Clinical Incident Investigation Report (Word) (Word 260KB)
Notification of SAC 1 incidents (which includes Sentinel Events)
Notification of SAC 1 incidents can be made via:
- Secure Fax: +61 8 9222 4014
- Secure Email: SAC1.events@health.wa.gov.au
File Formats
Some documents for download on this website are in a Portable Document Format (PDF). To read these files you might need to download Adobe® Acrobat Reader.