Paper death certificates are no longer acceptable at St. Joseph’s Health Hospital. All deaths in the hospital must be reported using the EDRS application. If you do not have a New York State HCS (Health Commerce System) account or have not registered your HCS account with St. Joseph’s HCS coordinator, you must do so or have a peer complete the death certificate for you on-line.
To register your HCS account with the HCS coordinator contact Chris Pine. HCS enrollment can be done on line if you have a NYS Driver’s license at https://apps.health.ny.gov/pubdoh/comdir/edoc/edocmed/ .
Improve Cause of Death Reporting
Cardiac arrest or cardiopulmonary arrest should never be used as the cause of death on the death certificate. The sequence of events leading to death should be clearly defined and time interval of event to death must be included.
An example is shown below.
Any death that is not the result of natural disease process must be reported to the medical examiner . This includes those that are related to a surgical / invasive procedure, injuries, violence, drug overdose or falls. This applies even if the death occurs much later in the hospitalization than the initial insult.
Gregory G Kenien, M.D., FACC
Chief Medical Information Officer
St. Joseph’s Health