Victorian Health Incident Management System (VHIMS)

The Victorian Health Incident Management System (VHIMS) is a standardised dataset for the collection and classification of clinical, occupational health and safety (OH&S) incidents, near misses and hazards. Incident information collected in VHIMS helps to drive local and statewide improvements in quality, safety and patient experience.

VHIMS was established in 2009 by the then Department of Health and Human Services. The Victorian Agency for Health Information (VAHI) took over responsibility for VHIMS in 2017. VAHI now coordinates VHIMS in collaboration with other divisions of the department, SCV and Victorian public and community health services.

VHIMS reforms

Since 2017, VAHI has undertaken significant reforms to ensure VHIMS is better able to inform quality and safety monitoring and improvement in Victorian public health services, including:

  • development of the VHIMS MDS  and associated data manual to support consistent and meaningful data collection.
  • implementation of new reporting arrangements that enable submission of near-real-time incident data to support timely identification of recurrent and emerging risks, including through VHIMS Central Solution  and the VHIMS application programming interface (API).

With implementation of near-real-time reporting arrangements nearly complete and all health services reporting the VHIMS MDS, VAHI is working closely with health services, the department and SCV to:

  • review the VHIMS MDS to streamline reporting requirements and reduce the burden on health services, with changes expected to be implemented by 1 July 2024. To ensure that the MDS remains relevant and fit for purpose for all data users, an annual change process will also be implemented.  
  • develop VHIMS Reports that support learning and improvement across the Victorian Health System. The VHIMS reporting strategy was released in May 2023, with the first reporting products expected in late 2023 – early 2024.

For more information on VHIMS, please email [email protected].

Accessing VHIMS data

Health services can access VHIMS data for their organisation by reviewing their own system. VAHI periodically releases state-wide reports on VHIMS incidents to health services that provide their data. The reports include detailed analysis and peer group benchmarking.

Please log any other requests for VHIMS data through the VAHI Data Request Hub.