How does your facility handle and unexpected death?

[linzz]

Just wondering how you guys handle an unexpected death, for example, you find a resident dead in their room. I know this happens all the time. I am just curious on how differing places handle this situation? Thanks.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Our facility handles unexpected deaths just like any other death.

We locate an RN to officially pronounce death. We then notify the family, and ask them if they had a specific funeral home in mind. Then, I call the funeral home for pick-up of the body, notify the doctor, and complete the discharge paperwork.

[linzz]

I ask this because I had a discussion with a nurse friend of mine who knew another nurse that was calling 911 every time she found someone dead. This seemed a bit off to me. Don't know if she was checking if they were a DNR or not. Crazy isn't it?

[Lorie P.]

if the pt is not a dnr, then a code is called with the ed doc, code team, house super and chaplin. if the pt is a dnr, then the primary doc is notified, house super and chaplin. usually the primary doc has the ed doc come and pronounce and then the paper work is filled out, body taken to the morgue . we do not notify the funeral home, that is done by the higher ups.

[jetscreamer101]

If they are a DNR, nurse pronounces. Most times we have to call the coroner and get an ok to release the body to a funeral home. On rare occassions, he will come out. We also notify primary doc, family, hospice if they are a hospice pt, and funeral home. Sometimes family want to "visit" before releasing the body, most times they do not.

If they are a full code, I code em. Let the ER doc decide when to stop.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

If it's truly unexpected we call and notify the doctor who then decides whether or not to call the ME. If it's that unexpected, we don't do an RN pronouncement.

Can't imagine why anyone would call 911 every time they find a dead patient.

[marjoriemac, LPN]

Over here if someone is not expected to die then the procedure is different depending on whether the patient was seen by their own doctor within a certain time bfore death (not quite sure what the time actually is). If they have not been seen, police coroner must be involved. This happened to us once and was really weird, patient was discharged from hospital to die in the home however he died the night he got back and so because his own GP had not seen him in over a month (the period he had been in hospital), the out of hours GP called the police medical examiner in. We had a policeman standing outside this mans roon for 3 hours until a police surgeon arrived and stated the obvious that the man had died of natural causes. Ridiculous.