Local Child Fatality Review Team: Role of the Hospital Representative
Child Fatality Review (CFR) is a multidisciplinary process to help us better understand why children in our community die and to help us identify how we can prevent future deaths.
Local Child Fatality Review Teams will meet with varying frequency to review sudden, unexpected, and unexplained deaths, deaths investigated by DCS, and those deaths classified as undetermined, homicide, suicide, or accident, for all children under the age of eighteen. Team members will share case information on child deaths that occur in their region with the goal of preventing future deaths. In order for this team to be successful, all agencies involved in the safety, health, and protection of children must be involved.
The death of a child is a tragic event. Reviewing the circumstances involved in every death is part of our job as professionals and requires our time and commitment. Only then can we truly understand how to better protect our children and prevent future deaths from occurring.
- The hospital representative can provide the team with information on:
- Medical records from the Emergency Department
- Records from inpatient or outpatient visits or clinics regarding the child’s condition or treatment
- The hospital representative can provide the team with expertise on:
- Medical issues
- Hospital policies and procedures
- The hospital representative can support the team by:
- Providing access to and information from other hospitals or medical care providers
- Providing assistance to member agencies in working with other hospitals or medical care providers in the community
- Facilitating the team’s efforts to impact hospital practices
- The hospital representative can help build bridges by:
- Learning about the policies and practices of other agencies through team participation
- Acting as liaison between the CFR team and the region’s other hospitals or medical care providers
- Explaining to the team how to improve coordination with area hospitals or medical care providers