Local councils and BSA locations such as the Supply Group and high-adventure bases have been using the online incident reporting gadget on MyBSA since 2009. As a result, Risk Management and Health and Safety have seen an increase in the overall reporting of incidents, and we thank you.

Of course, there is always room for improvement. Since 2010, all injuries, illness, and incidents requiring the intervention of a medical provider beyond basic Scout-rendered first aid shall be reported using this system. The Online Incident Reporting Guidelines are available online. These are also found on the front cover of the 2011 First Aid Log for Resident Camps. Please report all incidents that meet these guidelines—the sooner you enter an incident into the system, the quicker we can evaluate and respond, if necessary.

As part of our licensing agreement, we have allocated three light user (those who can enter incidents into the system) licenses for each council. Your council administrator is responsible for granting rights to no more than three users for your council. We ask that your administrator deactivate those users who should no longer have access to the incident reporting. In an effort to maximize the number of users, Angie Kahler, insurance management specialist, will be contacting local councils regarding the appropriate number of users.

As you or your designated user report incidents, we suggest that you fill out the Incident Information Report (680-016) or Near Miss Incident Information Report  (680-017) ahead of time. This should make the reporting easier. We ask that you provide as much information as possible, including a complete description of the incident and resulting injury.

For example, if we receive a report that states, “13-year-old Scout; accident,” it would necessitate a call to your office for more information. The following description provides us with more detail: “Mowing hay in the hayfield, and as he left the haymower to walk back to his truck, he twisted his knee in a gopher hole.”

Information on incident reporting can be found in the Guide to Safe Scouting on page 39. The appendix also contains a sample of the Incident Information Report. Scouting Safely, which can be found on www.scouting.org, also has the Incident Information Report and the Near Miss Information Report. Finally, Section 17 of the Risk Management Notebook contains information on incident reporting.

Should you have any questions regarding the Incident Report gadget and procedures for reporting an incident or near miss, please contact Brenda Newsome or Angie Kahler.