HD74 - Feasibility of Establishing a Southwest Virginia Regional Office of the Chief Medical Examiner


Executive Summary:
House Joint Resolution 214, passed by the 1996 General Assembly, requested the Department of Health to study the feasibility of establishing a regional Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Southwest Virginia. The Department was to consider the most appropriate site for an office; the availability of funds and necessary support services; the potential caseload; issues surrounding transportation and the lost time to the family, police officers, funeral directors and the courts; and such other issues as were appropriate.

Multiple-choice questionnaires were developed by a task group consisting of the Western District Pathologist, The Chief Medical Examiner and two administrators, analyzed by a biostatistician, reworded for statistical validity, and distributed to key groups who use the services of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. These groups included; all commonwealth's attorneys, local county and city medical examiners, heads of law enforcement agencies, and funeral directors in the 13 counties and three independent cities identified as the region known as Southwest Virginia.

A large majority of law enforcement and Commonwealth's Attorney respondents reported that a Southwest Virginia medical examiner's facility would facilitate their attendance at autopsies, allow better communication with the pathologist, and provide more convenient access to court for the pathologist thereby improving the overall quality of death investigation. They also recommended that the medical examiner's facility be co-located with a regional office of the Division of Forensic Science that would provide core services of drug analysis, firearms and fingerprints examinations to facilitate '"one-stop" shopping on case investigation.

A Southwest Virginia regional facility, if it were to meet the standard of service as the Roanoke facility, would need a similar physical plant for both the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Division of Forensic Science. It would need two pathologists if daily coverage of the office is to be provided, despite the fact that the caseload would provide only about 100 autopsies per year per pathologist. The office would also need an administrator, two morgue assistants to provide the present six days per week coverage and a secretary if it is to provide the same timeliness and quality of service that is presently provided at the Roanoke facility. Based on capitalization costs and operating costs for the Roanoke facility, estimates for future construction are it will cost more than $3 million to establish a smaller but similar combined facility in Southwest Virginia and more than $490,000 annually in operating costs.

The study concluded that more convenient, timely and accessible service to the Southwest region of the state would be achieved by development of a facility in Southwest Virginia staffed by Medical Examiner and Division of Forensic Science professionals. However, such an endeavor is not cost effective when population projections and funding are considered. When considering costs alone, resources might better be expended in augmenting services provided by the Western district in Roanoke rather than establishing an Abingdon office in the Southwestern area. The present and projected caseload of Southwest Virginia autopsies justify the addition of one pathologist and modest additions to the staff and equipment of the present Medical Examiner/Division of Forensic Science facility in Roanoke. Construction of a freestanding medical examiner's facility is not recommended at this time.