Overcoming barriers: enhancing medical autopsy rates through effective communication and IT integration

Medical autopsy activity has been declining for several decades to the point of completely ceasing in some European countries. The reason for this decline in activity was initially attributed to advances in imaging techniques as well as the costs involved. In this study, we have attempted to demonstrate that there is a way of increasing medical autopsy activity without any additional financial input or increase in human resources. Our results showed that good communication on the usefulness of medical autopsies within the medical and paramedical population and good training on how to request a medical autopsy from the family of the deceased patient would make it possible to increase the activity of medical autopsies without additional financial input. The second part of this study attempted to demonstrate that there is potential for increasing medical autopsy activity through the development of a digital process for requesting medical autopsies, with the aim of reducing the time spent on such a request by the clinician. Taken together, our results demonstrate the importance of communication within the medical and paramedical communities and with the family of the deceased patient for the success of medical autopsies. It also highlights the facilitating effect of digitisation in the medical autopsy request process for the clinicians.