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CDC official urges standards and interoperability to speed medical-legal death data for public health
Summary
Margaret Warner of the National Center for Health Statistics told an FTCoE webinar that better data standards, APIs and interoperable systems (HL7/FHIR) can make medical-examiner and coroner data timelier and more useful for public health, safety and resource planning. She highlighted provisional overdose counts and described federal data systems that rely on MDI data.
Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics, told participants in a Forensic Technology Center of Excellence webinar that medical-examiner and coroner (MDI) data are essential for identification, public-health surveillance and prevention and for justifying office staffing and budgets.
Warner said MDI offices collect diverse materials — scene reports, witness statements, medical and prescription histories, autopsy findings and laboratory results — and that the most enduring record is the death certificate. "The most pertinent information is captured on the death certificate," she said, adding that more detailed case files or case-management systems hold material used for investigations and research.
Why it matters: Public-health agencies, safety partners, law enforcement and researchers rely on MDI information to monitor causes of death, detect emerging threats and evaluate interventions. Warner cited a 2016 White House OSTP report showing that more than 40 federal agencies…
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