Would You Rather Report an Incident or Prevent One?

Would You Rather Report an Incident or Prevent One? Using IDD Health Data to Reduce Harm and Improve Outcomes

From the IDD Perspectives Webinar, partnering with ANCOR; featuring Craig Escudé, MD, FAAFP, FAADM, FAAIDD, and Daleigh Tallent, MSN, RN, CDDN

Which would you rather do, report an incident or prevent one from even happening? Ask most support teams how they handle incidents, and you’ll hear a familiar sequence: when something goes wrong, an incident report gets completed, the event is reviewed, corrective action may follow — and then attention shifts to the next event. It’s a cycle nearly every organization in the intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) field recognizes, because it’s the one most of us were trained to run.

For provider agencies, group homes, support coordinators, clinicians, and frontline teams supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the choice matters every time a fall, choking incident, or behavioral crisis turns into harm that might have been identified earlier.

During a recent IDD Perspectives webinar, Dr. Craig Escudé and Daleigh Tallent, MSN, RN, CDDN of IntellectAbility made the case that this traditional cycle, while well-intentioned, keeps organizations perpetually one step behind. This article looks at what a prevention cycle does differently: using baseline health knowledge and ongoing data to spot risk sooner, applying tools such as the Health Risk Screening Tool (HRST®), training supporters to act on what the data shows, and measuring outcomes that can reduce crises, control costs, and improve quality of life for people with IDD.

The Traditional Cycle vs. The Prevention Cycle

The traditional, reactive cycle is built entirely around response: an incident happens, it gets documented, it gets reviewed, and maybe something changes before the next one occurs. Incident reporting systems also need to address reporting biases because they affect data quality. The problem, as Escudé and Tallent laid out, is that this cycle only starts moving after someone has already been harmed.

A prevention cycle runs in parallel with daily support rather than waiting for a crisis: you notice a change, gather information, identify patterns and risks, act early, measure whether the action worked, adjust the support plan, and educate the person and their supporters. A stronger reporting culture is also supported by confidentiality, feedback, and ease of use. Each stage feeds the next, creating an ongoing loop rather than a one-time fix.

Most Incidents Have History and Incident Trends

One of the most important points made during the webinar is that incidents rarely come out of nowhere. They usually have a lead-up — a history of smaller signals that, in hindsight, pointed to what was coming, so teams should describe small changes clearly so patterns can be recognized sooner.

  • Falls may follow sedation, weakness, dehydration, or infection.
  • Choking may follow changes in swallowing, posture, pace, or alertness, and choking events often first appear as recognizable patterns rather than isolated surprises.
  • Behavioral changes may reflect pain, constipation, reflux, infection, or medication side effects, so teams should treat them as early warning signs to watch for.

The early signs are almost always there in daily observations. The challenge for most organizations isn’t that the data doesn’t exist — it’s that early detection depends on reviewing the data and doing analysis before the incident happens.

Know the Baseline, Know the Person

Prevention starts with knowing what “normal” looks like for each individual, so that changes are easier to catch. Tools like a Health Passport — a single place to capture baseline information, medical history, and other essential details — help support staff, nurses, and clinicians create a shared reference point and support completion of a more complete and reliable record in one place instead of relying on memory or scattered notes. A free downloadable version of the HRST Health Passport can be found here: HRST Health Passport – IntellectAbility.

With that knowledge helping organizations in establishing clearer preventive practices and guidelines, organizations need to know:

  • Person-specific risks — things like aspiration, bowel obstruction or constipation, dehydration, and seizures that are more likely for a given individual.
  • Person-specific preventive measures — for example, diet modification and mealtime monitoring for aspiration risk, bowel tracking and dietary consultation for constipation risk, reviewing meds when side effects may be contributing to risk and other medication concerns, or assistive devices, pharmacy consultation, and environmental evaluation for fall risk.
  • The person’s level of acuity — a measure of health needs and medical complexity that helps determine how much healthcare oversight, monitoring, and support someone requires, and that helps guide care planning and allocate resources appropriately.

Yet, when Escudé and Tallent posed the question to webinar attendees — how your organization identifies people at increased health risk and which preventive actions and training to implement — a striking number of respondents pointed to informal methods: team experience and discussion, or simply no formal process at all.

Early Risk Identification Changes Everything

The difference between organizations that stratify acuity and those that don’t is striking. Without acuity stratification, organizations tend to see delayed recognition of health changes, care focused on crisis response, frequent emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and higher, less predictable costs. With acuity stratification in place, the picture shifts toward early recognition of risk, care focused on prevention and stability, fewer preventable emergencies, and better outcomes at a lower cost. Organizations should measure the time spent on incident care, not just the individual incidents, to evaluate whether prevention is working. A post-incident review and debrief documents can help educate teams and refine preventive actions.

That’s the essence of the message: move from reaction to prevention to reduce adverse outcomes by identifying risks earlier.

How the Health Risk Screening Tool (HRST) Works

To operationalize that shift, Escudé and Tallent walked through IntellectAbility’s Health Risk Screening Tool (HRST) — described as the only validated predictive risk engine built specifically for people with IDD and other at-risk populations. Since 1992, it has been used to screen more than 130,000 lives annually, with over 30 years of validated use across the field. It is designed to be implemented in real-world provider settings.

The HRST works in four stages:

  1. Objective Screening across 22 areas of risk, spanning items like functional status, behavior, physiological conditions, safety, and frequency of services.
  2. Acuity Scoring, where a numerical risk score is assigned per Rating Item, typically ranging from 0 (no issues within the past 12 months) to 4 (a potentially life-altering or life-defining issue, or hospitalization, within the past 12 months).
  3. Risk Tiering sorts results into Health Care Levels 1 through 6 — from low risk to high risk — providing providers with a defensible, evidence-based acuity classification.
  4. Targeted Action, which translates the score into concrete considerations for planning, training, and immediate intervention, helping define the scope of risks that need attention for each person.

The result: every person screened receives an evidence-based acuity level and a person-centered action plan to match — data that flows directly into Service Considerations (what kind of support and equipment a person needs) and Training Considerations (what staff need to know, such as how to manage bowel issues, aspiration risk, or seizures).

Turning Training Into Action

Data alone doesn’t prevent incidents — employees trained to act on it do, especially when that training is supported by reliable processes and technology. That’s where IntellectAbility’s Academy comes in, offering person-centered eLearn courses including the Fatal Five, as well as various health & safety, behavior, and Trauma-Informed Support courses that help teams provide better answers under pressure, learn from brief debrief-style follow-up after incidents, and manage risk more consistently.

Prevention Works — and the Numbers Show It

Escudé and Tallent closed with outcomes data from organizations that have put this approach into practice:

  • Threshold Residential Services screened 51 people using the HRST. In the following year, behavior-related unusual incidents declined by 56%, unanticipated hospitalizations declined by 50%, and emergency department utilization declined by 43%.
  • Discovery Living, Inc., which trained 230 staff members supporting 150 adults in Fatal Five Fundamentals, saw a 37% reduction in emergency department and urgent care visits within one year, along with an estimated $274,410 saved in medical costs and $15,237 saved in staff overtime.

As the presenters put it simply: prevention improves outcomes, reduces staff burden, reduces reportable events, and improves lives.

The Bottom Line

Reporting an incident will always have its place — organizations need to understand what happened in each instance, respond appropriately, and recognize that poor reporting can lead to significant regulatory penalties, including in the case of a near-miss. But Escudé and Tallent’s message was clear: the goal isn’t to get better at reporting, because prevention is a strategy for managing risk before a failure escalates. It’s to build systems that catch the signs early enough that there’s less to report in the first place, while also strengthening investigation and recovery when incidents do occur. That requires knowing each person’s baseline, their specific risks, their level of acuity, and having staff trained to act on that information before a crisis, not after.

Additional Resources:

Keeping DSPs Fired Up But Not Burnt Out: What Every Provider Should Know

IDD-P_DSPs Fired Up

Keeping DSPs Fired Up But Not Burnt Out: What Every Provider Should Know

Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) are trained to do some of the most demanding, most undervalued work in the Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD) field. They show up every day for the people who need them, often for low pay, long hours, and little public recognition, yet their stability directly affects the health, safety, and health outcomes of people with IDD.

So, what actually keeps a DSP motivated? And what can organizations, families, and DSPs themselves do to prevent burnout before it happens?

That was the focus of a recent IDD Perspectives webinar featuring Dr. Craig Escudé, family physician and President of IntellectAbility, and special guest, John Raffaele, a nearly 40-year veteran of IDD services, education, and workforce development, who holds a Master of Social Work (MSW). John also serves as the Director of Educational Services at the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP).

This discussion examines what keeps DSPs motivated, what pushes them toward burnout, and what helps prevent it—from self-care and ethical practice to the role of supervision, team culture, and even new technologies such as AI.

What Actually Motivates a DSP?

Ask any DSP why they stay in the field — whether they’re brand new or 30 years in — and you’ll almost always get the same answer:

It’s the people.

That’s the number one reason DSPs keep doing this work, even when the pay is low and the hours are long: 90% say they enjoy making a difference in clients’ lives. But passion for the people they support isn’t enough on its own to prevent burnout. A few other factors matter just as much:

  • Good supervisors — not just managers, but mentors, teachers, and coaches who improve the employee experience, and 84% of DSPs say appreciation from supervisors is key.
  • A healthy team — most DSPs work in residential or day program settings alongside other staff, and a toxic team can drive even the most dedicated DSP to leave.
  • Bringing your best self to work — easier said than done when DSPs may also be juggling caregiving of their own families at home.

Those meaningful connections can also give staff members a stronger sense of purpose and resilience.

Some organizations are taking this seriously by supporting DSPs’ lives outside of work, too — helping with things like childcare, or even offering staff reduced rates on retired fleet vehicles. Professional growth and opportunities for advancement also help DSPs see a future in the field and reduce turnover. It’s a reminder that supporting the workforce is just as important as supporting the people they serve.

Why The Work Matters More Than DSPs May Realize

It’s easy for DSPs to get buried in documentation and day-to-day tasks and lose sight of the impact they’re having. But that impact is real — and often lifesaving.

DSPs are frequently the first to notice that “something’s off” with the person they support; they often have strengthened their ability through person-centered relationships and knowing clients as individuals. For example, a change in bowel habits, a person holding their mouth strangely, or a shift in mood or behavior — this kind of pattern recognition, built on genuine relationships and familiarity, has led to emergency interventions that saved lives.

As Dr. Escudé put it, some of the most important diagnostic input he’s ever received as a physician started with a DSP saying, “He’s just not acting right.” Physicians who listen to that instinct — and take it seriously — get better outcomes for the people they treat. The Health Risk Screening Tool through IntellectAbility can help identify health risks for people with IDD and support earlier action. The result is improved consistency in care delivery, enhanced clinical oversight, and reduced exposure to preventable health complications and outcomes. The HRST is a validated health risk screening and stratification instrument designed for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and other at-risk populations. It enables organizations to identify, quantify, and proactively manage health risks that can lead to destabilization, adverse outcomes, avoidable suffering, and premature mortality. Learn more by visiting the Health Risk Screening Tool Overview.

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just validate how essential DSPs are — it also clarified that their role goes far beyond medical tasks, into emotional and psychological support. DSPs quarantined alongside the people they supported served as emotional lifelines during isolation, and helped communicate critical context to hospital staff when family and other visitors weren’t allowed in.

What Can DSPs Do to Protect Themselves from Burnout and Compassion Fatigue?

Self-care is one of the most underused tools DSPs have — largely because DSPs tend to be selfless people who put others first. That selflessness is part of what makes them so good at their job, but it also makes them vulnerable to overextending themselves. Some stress is normal in this work, but when it goes unmanaged, burnout or compassion fatigue can happen.

A few practical starting points:

  • Actually take time off. Even something as simple as an afternoon off can matter — though this is often easier said than done. Adequate sleep, recovery time, and stepping back before physical exhaustion sets in all matter for reducing long-term health risk.
  • Lean into what nourishes you. For many DSPs, that’s faith, spiritual practice, or community involvement.
  • Move your body. Regular exercise doesn’t mean training for a marathon — a short walk on a break, or exercising alongside the person you support, can shift your mood and energy.
  • Set boundaries between work and home. This is one of the hardest parts of the job. No individual habit matters more than leaning on supervisors and teammates to help you “hand off” emotionally at the end of a shift — especially if you’re on call on weekends or find yourself in the habit of taking work emotions home with you.
  • Protect a workable routine. A predictable schedule and a more stable week can reduce fatigue and make it easier to recover between shifts.

Compassion fatigue can show up as irritability, reduced empathy, and increased absenteeism. It can also contribute to anxiety, depression, and other health issues.

Organizations play a role here too — by making self-care genuinely accessible, not just encouraged in theory. Effective strategies include access to mental health resources, regular recognition, and monitoring staffing and schedules to ensure predictable shifts and a stable week, reducing fatigue. When recovery and support do not happen consistently, burnout can interfere with a DSP’s ability to provide care.

What Role Does a Code of Ethics Play?

Just as physicians take the Hippocratic Oath, DSPs have their own guiding code: the NADSP Code of Ethics, first published in 2002 and recently revised for 2026.

The updated code is written directly to DSPs — using “I will” language — and centers on values like professionalism, accountability, and growth. It’s designed to act as a compass for the countless “oh no moments” DSPs face: situations they weren’t specifically trained for, where they still have to make an ethical, dignity-preserving choice in real time, while helping establish clear guidance and boundaries rooted in respect across the workplace. Leaders and supervisors should use the code to talk openly about what is expected, so staff know what they are responsible for.

While it’s written for DSPs, the code is a valuable resource for anyone who works with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — including clinicians. Psychological safety and open communication also help teams apply the code consistently and stay engaged, and a supportive culture keeps Direct Support Professionals motivated.

Will AI Replace Direct Support Professionals?

Short answer: no.

AI can’t hold someone’s hand, offer a hug during a crisis, or build the kind of trust that comes from years of a relationship. What it can do is take some of the burden off tasks like documentation — a genuine pain point. Practical documentation systems and better tools can strengthen documentation skills, build confidence, and improve retention, especially for a new DSP still learning the role.

That said, both speakers were clear-eyed about the risks. AI-generated notes still require human review — DSPs remain accountable for anything they sign off on, AI tools can get details wrong, and supervisors need a clear plan for how staff should review and use them. Technology should support, not replace, the human judgment DSPs use in direct support services. Used carefully, technology can free up more time for the human connection that actually defines great direct support. Used carelessly, it can create new problems.

The Bottom Line

Direct support work is demanding, often thankless, and chronically undervalued as a profession — but it’s also work that changes, and sometimes saves, lives. Preventing burnout isn’t just an individual responsibility or self-care issue; it requires a long-range retention plan, supervisors who mentor, teams that support each other, organizations that invest in their workforce, fair compensation, and competitive pay, and understanding just how essential this work really is. Investing in professional development increases job satisfaction, providing opportunities for advancement reduces turnover, and helps staff see a bright and impactful future as a DSP.

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