The Victorian Health Incident Management System Minimum Dataset (VHIMS MDS) is a standardised dataset designed to collect clinical and occupational health and safety (OH&S) incidents, near misses and hazards.
These data must be collected in all Victorian public health services and all services under their governance structure including community health and bush nursing centres.
What do you have to report?
All clinical, occupational health and safety incidents, near misses and hazards.
The specific requirements are outlined in the Data Manual which can be downloaded below.
Why do we collect this information?
Incident information collected in VHIMS helps to drive local and statewide improvements in quality, safety and patient experience.
The requirement to report the VHIMS MDS is noted in the Departments ‘Policy and Funding Guidelines’ published on the Department of Health’s website.
VHIMS reforms
Since 2017, the department 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 and review 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 complete and all health services reporting the VHIMS MDS, the department is working closely with health services and SCV to report the revised VHIMS MDS Version 2 by April 2025.
The changes are designed to improve the data collection and to meet the needs of data users and policy teams in the department undertaking the important role of monitoring the quality and safety patients, clients, residents and consumers, as well as visitors and those working within Victoria's public health services.
The next phase of reforms will include the development of VHIMS Reports that support learning and improvement across the Victorian Health System. This is expected to occur in 2025.
Future changes
It is anticipated that the VHIMS MDS will undergo periodic review and changes to ensure the collection continues to support the needs of stakeholders.
It is expected that future reviews will align with well-established change processes utilised for the department’s administrative datasets. For further information see https://www.health.vic.gov.au/data-reporting/annual-changes
VHIMS Data Manual
The VHIMS MDS dataset manual provides a complete data set resource for incident reporters and data users, including
- definitions of data items
- information and business rules regarding data recording and transmission
- contact details for support related to the VHIMS MDS
The VHIMS Health Incident Management System (VHIMS) Minimum Dataset version 2 Manual is now available to download below. This manual incorporates changes to be implemented by April 2025.
Documents related to the VHIMS MDS version 2 change process can be found here.
For more information on VHIMS, please email