The Decline of the Hospital Autopsy: A Missed Opportunity for Quality and Education in Healthcare

1 Canada · Saskatchewan University and Royal University Hospital Pathology · Clinical Laboratory Department

* Corresponding Author: Kalra J, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Province, Canadian Hospital, Medical University Hospital School, Pathology Medicine Department, Saskatchewan State, Canadian College, S7N 0W8

The autopsy rate around the world has declined over decades. In this study, we decided the whole and the difference of the autopsy rate of Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast from 1997 to 1999. The trend was examined by comparing with the data collected in the past in 1990, 1991, 1993. Questionnaires were used to assess the reasons for the decline in the autopsy rate observed by clinicians in hospitals. Over the past decade, the overall autopsy rate steadily declined from 30.4% in 1990 to 18.4% in 1999. This is because the hospital's autopsy rate declined from 21.6% in 1990 to 7.9% in 1999. The autopsy rate of the coroner was relatively constant at around 11%. Declining overall and hospital necropsy rates are related to all major rest, but the hospital's autopsy rate is currently under 7%, most noticeable in medicine, surgery, and intensive care.

Support for hospital necropsy is in the specialized medical association and medical literature, but there is no formal benchmark of acceptable hospital necropsy rate. For decades, that is not necessary. After Abraham Flexner got a tough complaint about medical education in 1910, the American medical department adopted a German medical education model, which is the central element of clinical medicine correlation and necropsy. Academic doctors (clinicians and pathologists) use autopsies as research and educational tools. Regional hospitals basically follow it as well. For a while, the hospital's autopsy rate has become an indication of quality medical service efforts. By the end of World War II, nearly half of the people who died at an American hospital received a necropsy, and the cost to teach the hospital was much higher.