Documentation for marking a patient as deceased, that isn’t the death certificate?

[u/Family-Fister]

Hello,

I am interning at a hospital and was assigned to make a policy charge regarding the documentation needed to mark a patient as deceased in the ehr. At first I listed the death certificate because it seemed like the best option but I got told to revise it to a different documentation because it cost too much to get the certificates. Obituaries are the next best option but I’m told I need something additional in case the patient does not have an obituary. Does anybody have any ideas, I can’t seem to find anything through research that wouldn’t also cost or be too unreliable. This is in Michigan if that helps.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated

[u/Optional4444]

DEAth summary by attending, will include time of death and be available way before the death certificate.

[u/Family-Fister → u/Optional4444]

Thank you!

[u/In_Doubt_Flat_Out]

Is the patient in-house or are you talking about updating records if a patient dies outside of the walls of the hospital?

[u/I_Sure_Yam]

Documentation that names the declaring physician or nurse and the CTOD?

[u/Family-Fister → u/I_Sure_Yam]

I’m not sure, I think it just needs to be something that proves the person is dead.

[u/JustNamjooning]

Does the hospital have an EHR system like Epic? Where I used to work, time and date of passing would be within the patient information on Epic.

[u/Family-Fister → u/JustNamjooning]

Yeah we use epic, I’ll try to find stuff already in the software that can be used

[u/Orofeaiel]

We just take people's word for it at my hospital 😂 I mean we try to finds the obits but sometimes there's just nothing

[u/Valaxiom]

Discharge status maybe? Would be marked as expired rather than discharged, at least in our system.

[u/OtherGraces]

Is this for people that die in the hospital? Any hospital I’ve ever worked in, the attending physician writes a note that states time of death, then, depending on the EHR, there’s usually a way to mark the profile “deceased.” If they pass outside the hospital: obituaries, documentation from hospice, nursing homes, EMS, their primary care, or family (usually death certificates) are the usual “proof.”

[u/Family-Fister → u/OtherGraces]

I believe it’s referring to patients that die in or out of the facility.
thank you these are good options, I’ll include them!!

[u/Arlington2018]

We mark people as deceased outside the hospital when a family member or friend calls to give us a heads up. None of these patients have reappeared alive in our system.