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Medical Examiner & Coroner Software |
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Medical Examiner & Coroner Software |
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The
primary purpose for Alcestis is to
create a nationwide, comprehensive, and uniform database for use by county
medical examiners, coroners, health departments, state agencies and researchers. Alcestis
provides a low-cost case management tool to medical examiner and coroner offices
while providing all of the functionality and customization that higher priced
case management software programs offer. Additional information regarding the
system can be found on the "Features"
page.
Its
History
Understanding
the value of non-natural death data, the Michigan Department of Community Health
(MDCH) investigated the willingness among certain county medical examiners to
participate in an electronic and standardized data collection effort.
During a 1996 feasibility study, the support for developing such a system
was voiced by the majority of chief medical examiners in Michigan and by the
Michigan Association of Medical Examiners. Several factors present at that time
are noteworthy:
·
Medical
Examiner/Coroner (ME/C) offices often did not communicate vital case information
with their local health departments, even when required by law (e.g., reporting
cases of certain infectious diseases).
·
ME/C
case information is often not available in a timely fashion for investigations,
such as for the Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC).
The state’s vital statistics office may not receive the data until over
6 months after an event.
·
Seventy-six
percent of the medical examiner offices were aggregating data but only 39
percent were doing so electronically.
·
A
significant number of newly appointed chief medical examiners were searching for
a low-cost, electronic method of organizing data management operations.
·
In
general, commercial medical examiner software packages were very expensive to
purchase and maintain, written in obscure programming languages, not Y2K
compliant, and/or DOS-based.
·
Technological
advances had expanded the versatility and utility of the Internet as a data
collection and management tool while computer costs declined.
The
Alcestis™ software was funded by the State of Michigan, through the Michigan
Public Health Institute (MPHI), and was rewritten, based upon designs
developed by A.J. Boggs & Company (AJBoggs)
for the Michigan Medical Examiner Database project, using Microsoft .NET
technologies. AJBoggs supports software
development, maintenance, and testing of Alcestis. It uses Microsoft .NET
technologies and incorporates automated alerting mechanisms to inform ME/Cs of
cases they are required by law to report to local public health departments.
Alcestis currently serves in Michigan as a statewide comprehensive and uniform
database for use by ME/C and researchers.
