FEATURES OF COMMERCIAL COMPUTER SOFTWARE SYSTEMS FOR MEDICAL EXAMINERS AND CORONERS

There are many ways of automating medical examiner and coroner offices , one of which is to purchase commercial software products specificall y designed for death investigation. We surveyed four companies that of fer such products and requested information regarding each company and its hardware, software, operating systems, peripheral devices, applic ations, networking options, programming language, querying capability, coding systems, prices, customer support, and number and size of offi ces using the product. Although the four products (CME2, ForenCIS, InQ uest, and Medical Examiner's Software System) are similar in many resp ects and each can be installed on personal computers, there are differ ences among the products with regard to cost, applications, and the ot her features. Death investigators interested in office automation shou ld explore these products to determine the usefulness of each in compa rison with the others and in comparison with general-purpose, off-the- shelf databases and software adaptable to death investigation needs.