“We are a fully accredited office through the National Association Medical Examiners and every year we have to report statistical data and other data.
The system. We get it done. We don’t have to manually go and track it. It’s all right there. I can easily look at it and say okay this is where we are.
It does help us.
In fact we just had our inspection, last week. And through that inspection, the inspector asked for certain data (*points to computer screen), I had it to him within 2-10 minutes. And he was amazed too. Well I was amazed we were able to get this to him so fast.” – Cas
Cas was thrilled to give us a tour of his facility and point out the many advantages the Forensic Case Management System(FCMS) has provided. We started out in the receiving facility. It’s where they ambulances pull into a garage like area and the system starts tracking right there.
“The body comes in, it’s weighed and entered into the computer. Which includes who accepted the body. Who dropped off the body. If the body bag was replaced, so we know how to bill a body bag out.
That actually triggers the autopsy Attendants to know that the body is here and it actually triggers them to get that case ready for the next day. Then that triggers the Clerical staff to prepare the case for the doctors for the next morning.” – Cas
So we walked into the docking hallway next and Dave asked a few questions about the Oakland County process.
“Using Coroner Pro, cases are opened up by either the Investigator or the Administrator and that’s what really kinda triggers setting up everything for the flow of the body, that comes through the Medical Examiners office?” – Dave
“Correct. So what happens is if it’s a case coming in? They simply mark that it’s being transported and once the body is transported here. That really starts the triggering process because once the body is in took, it goes into the autopsy attendant’s queue. They understand how to then go through the body, they can do the storage and they can do everything from there.” – Cas
“What’s registered within the Coroner Pro system? The person’s first name last name? All that pertinent information. Is there chain of custody? Is there personal belongings? Is everything logged into the Coroner Pro system, correct?” – Dave
“Correct. Once the body is in took, it’s inspected. All that is documented in the system property evidence portion of it. So any property that’s on the body is put down into the system. So even the body is tracked into evidence so that we can track transportation to and from the morgue.” – Cas
As we moved room to room Cas expressed the process the FCMS completed. It truly was clean and efficient. One of the great takeaways that’s not captured in the video is the amount of filing cabinet storage they eliminated. Yeah they still have them. But there’s no use for 80% of them.
Cas standing in front of the the only filing cabinets still in use. They used to have rows of them, with an abundance of paperwork.