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Patient Death

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  1. Call your resident

  2. Pronounce Patient

  3. Notify Family and inquire if they would like an autopsy---if interested in autopsy, they need to sign form (found with Floor BA) either in person or via fax and call x47376 (morgue) to let them know

  4. Notify Attending of Record (or covering attending)

  5. Write Death Note in EPIC

  6. Determine if Medical Examiner (ME) needs to be contacted. Note, a patient with a significant HISTORY of one of the following (ex. prior employment injury leading to paralysis) is an indication, even if not the reason for admission. When in doubt, call! Absolute indications:

    • All forms of criminal violence or from an unlawful act or criminal neglect
    • All accidents (motor vehicle, industrial, home, public place, etc.); this also includes falls/trauma leading to admission
    • All suicides
    • All deaths that are caused or contributed to by drug and/or chemical overdose or poisoning
    • Sudden death of a person in apparent good health
    • Deaths which occur unattended by a physician and where no physician can be found to certify the cause of death; in this context, "unattended by a physician" shall mean not treated by a physician within 31 days immediately preceding death
    • Deaths of all persons in legal detention, jails or police custody: This category also includes any prisoner who is a patient in a hospital, regardless of the duration of hospital confinement
    • Deaths which occur during diagnostic or therapeutic procedures or from complications of such procedures
    • When a fetus is born dead in the absence of a physician or midwife
    • Stillbirths in the hospital need not be reported to OCME unless there is a history of maternal trauma or drug abuse, or the case has some other unusual or suspicious circumstance
    • Neonatal deaths from prematurity and its complications must be reported if the premature delivery was caused by maternal trauma or drug abuse
    • Deaths due to disease, injury, or toxic agent resulting from employment
    • When there is an intent to cremate or dispose of a body in any fashion other than interment in a cemetery
    • Dead bodies brought into the City without proper medical certification
    • Deaths which occur in any suspicious or unusual manner
    • OCME also investigates any case that may present a threat to public health.

  7. Complete DAVE (i.e. Death) Certificate: This must be done within 24 hours

    • Use license number of attending of record
    • If any issues, contact the admitting office and/or go down to their office on GP2 next to Hatch Auditorium