Notify medical examiner in cases of:
- Accident (including traffic)
- This includes accidents that happened years prior to death but that contributed to cause of death. Example: Patient who had an MVA years ago leading to quadriplegia and chronic need for mechanical ventilation who dies 2/2 ventilator associated pneumonia.
- Suicide
- Homicide
- Complication of medical procedure/intervention
- Suspected injury
- Unknown sequence of events leading to death
When stating cause of death you can give the immediate cause of death but should also include the sequence of events/diseases that lead to the patient’s death:
Immediate Cause (Most recent condition/happened hours leading to death) < Intermediate Cause (older condition that lead to immediate cause (usually days leading to death) < Underlying cause (oldest condition that started chain of events (usually years leading to death)
Example : Severe Sepsis < Multi lobar PNA < Severe Chronic COPD
If sepsis or infection involved and you know the organism add it as part of the information.
Cause of death is determined by you to the best of your ability with the information that you have available. (You are not expected to do a full chart review to provide the information)