Utilizing the Decedent Affairs Navigator to Ensure High Reliability Communication and Morgue Processes

As Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) experienced an influx of deceased patients during the COVID-19 pandemic three circumstances recurred: 1) the location of deceased patients were not being tracked properly, 2) the belongings and bodies of the deceased were being lost throughout the system, and 3) bodies were being released before autopsies were performed. HMH took on the U.S. Surgeon General's challenge to reduce healthcare worker burnout by developing a morgue tracking process called Decedent Affairs.

To standardize the postmortem checklists for the adult, pediatric, neonatal and fetal demise populations and consolidate centralized documentation in a Decedent Affairs Navigator. This would promote transparency in the morgue tracking process, reduce redundancy in documentation, improve overall burnout, and aid in HMH's devotion to being a high reliability organization (HRO).

A multidisciplinary team customized the Decedent Affairs navigator to HMH's needs. Key features included Shared Workspaces, Reduction of Documentation Burden, and Organization of Decedent Tracking. The navigator went network-live on October 18th, 2023. Implementation approaches included the use of on-site workshops and digital tutorials.

There was an 83 % rate decrease in the number of incidents of missing decedent items and/or bodies. Duplicative documentation reduced by 11.4%, saving documentation time by 31 seconds.

The Decedent Affair navigator offers a niched and centralized hub within Epic to document information related to death procedures that can simplify workflows and reduce frequencies of lost bodies and personal properties of deceased patients in healthcare organizations.