Part of Child Health Interoperability (CHI) implementation guide for child health information services

PDS death notification

PDS Death Notification event messages are generated by the Spine and published to the NEMS when a patient’s death notification status is changed within PDS.

Data fields available in this message

This table lists the data fields in the PDS death notification message.

DCH FHIR event
Death date
Death time
Notified date
Status of death notification

Checklist questions

These questions can be used to capture data about your services.

How are you currently notified of a death having occurred?
How do you receive the message, from whom and in what format?
Who processes the message and how do you process it (number of staff involved)?
Is the information you receive complete and timely? If not, what is the impact of not having the information or receiving it late?
What do you do with the data once received?
How long does it take to process the data?
How many messages do you receive per day?
Where does this information go to next?

Sample AS-IS and TO-BE maps

Download copies of the PDS birth notification AS-IS and TO-BE maps for death notifications.

Sample AS-IS death notification map

pptx 42 KB

Sample TO-BE death notification map

pptx 48 KB

What benefits can be achieved?

This table helps you to identify potential benefits of receiving death notifications via NEMS.

Do you currently?	With NEMS	Which means	What may be impacted?	Possible measures before and after
Receive death notifications from different sources?	You will receive informal and formal death notifications as they are updated on the spine for your whole population	An additional failsafe and or opportunity to redefine the process	Timeliness and completeness of notification received	Number of death notifications received
Ever receive death notifications late?	You will receive an informal/formal death notification as they are updated on the Spine	There is less risk of contacting a family inappropriately. You can pro-actively follow up with your usual source. For example CDOP.	enhanced robustness through additional data source need for additional checks	Any late notifications Any occurrences of inappropriate contact
Inform other parties and carry out failsafe/checking?	All interested parties including GPs, health visitors, school nurses, CHIS, screening services will receive the notifications at the same time as you. When they are live on NEMS.	Everyone will have consistent information and some failsafe/checing or communications may be reduced. This will give some process/ SOP review.	Timeliness of notifications enhanced robustness time involved in notifying others	Either before and after.

Do you currently?

With NEMS

Which means

What may be impacted?

Possible measures before and after

Receive death notifications from different sources?

You will receive informal and formal death notifications as they are updated on the spine for your whole population

An additional failsafe and or opportunity to redefine the process

Timeliness and completeness of notification received

Number of death notifications received

Ever receive death notifications late?

You will receive an informal/formal death notification as they are updated on the Spine

There is less risk of contacting a family inappropriately. You can pro-actively follow up with your usual source. For example CDOP.

enhanced robustness through additional data source need for additional checks

Any late notifications

Any occurrences of inappropriate contact

Inform other parties and carry out failsafe/checking?

All interested parties including GPs, health visitors, school nurses, CHIS, screening services will receive the notifications at the same time as you.

When they are live on NEMS.

Everyone will have consistent information and some failsafe/checing or communications may be reduced.

This will give some process/ SOP review.

Timeliness of notifications enhanced robustness time involved in notifying others

Either before and after.

Last edited: 17 January 2022 2:56 pm

PDS death notification