An initiative to help medical examiners and coroners–also referred to as Medicolegal Death Investigators (MDI)–share their data with public health and other agencies is having a major impact, allowing families faster access to death certificates and officials to mount a quicker response to community health threats.
MDI Connect, a new program developed by the CDC Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), streamlines data exchange between MDI offices and other partners, making it easier for their data systems to connect and share information electronically.
Increasing deaths from suicides, homicides, heat-related injuries and the overdose epidemic have led to record caseloads and overstretched staff, so these improvements have had an immediate impact. Information technology upgrades supported by MDI Connect lessen the workload on MDI personnel, shortening the time it takes to input data and reducing errors that can arise with manual entry.
MDI Connect program participants gathered at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta to learn more
MDI Connect helps agencies share important data
Dealing With Death Certificates
When a sudden or unexplained death occurs, medical examiners and coroners are typically some of the first people notified. That’s the case for about 20% of the 2.4 million annual deaths in the U.S.–resulting in about 450,000 death investigations a year. Each of these tragedies impacts loved ones left behind to deal with the grief, uncertainty and often, daunting paperwork. Death certificates are essential to survivors–without one, it’s impossible to hold a burial, close accounts, collect on insurance or access government benefits.
Shane Sheets of the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office said that with MDI Connect, “We're trying to address the inefficiencies of death certificate filing, remove human error and really just make the workflow easier for our staff and general public. I think that's a huge benefit of this program.”
Families shouldn't have to wait forever for a death certificate.
Streamlined autopsy reporting offers other advantages as well. When public safety and healthcare officials identify geographic clusters of overdoses in real time, they can coordinate with partners to distribute anti-overdose medications, like naloxone, and offer other services in specific neighborhoods.
“The data will be searchable and can be distributed to all of the agencies that our office works with so they can more efficiently address the opioid crisis and allocate their resources more appropriately,” said Rachel Martindale, Medical Examiner and Forensic Services at Western Michigan University’s Homer Stryker, M.D. School of Medicine.
Protecting Public Health
Outdated data systems strain the ability of MDI offices to collaborate with public health more effectively. Understanding statistics like birth rates, number and causes of death and the prevalence of chronic illnesses is key to developing effective interventions. MDI Connect not only makes collecting and sharing that information easier, but can also more quickly alert health officials to deadly dangers like disease outbreaks or environmental contamination.
To aid in this effort, MDI Connect offers technical support to update technology and install tools like Application Program Interface (APIs) so that coroner and medical examiners’ offices can share data with other agencies regardless of the software system used. The project also serves as a learning collaborative for peer-to-peer problem solving.
“The benefit for us in being part of the MDI Connect project has truly been networking with other offices across the country,” Sheets pointed out. “We are able to understand their difficulties, their strengths – any weaknesses they have with this technology – and we can all learn from them as an agency. And of course, we can share our components with others and just help them succeed along the way too.”
MDI Connect participants meet to share successes and challenges
Currently, 16 offices in 13 states have received funding to implement data modernization projects, with new opportunities forthcoming. As the network grows, officials across the country will have even more data on hand to make essential decisions about public health.
“Data modernization and the efforts to improve interoperability are critical in order to understand how and why people are dying in this country,” said Brandi McCleskey, an associate coroner/medical examiner for Jefferson County, Alabama. “The more offices that can get support and resources and personnel to really focus on these efforts would really improve overall the public health information and strategies and initiatives for our country.”
Learn more about MDI Connect and view success story videos.
This project was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,726,393.00 with 57 percentage funded by CDC/HHS through Medical Examiner and Coroner Data Modernization Implementer's Group and $2,097,363.00 and 43 percentage funded by non-government source(s). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.
