PEORIA, Illinois (WMBD) — The Peoria County coroner’s office Monday received a new technology program to make operations run more smoothly.
The office is now switching to an all-digital document system. This format reduces the chance of error, improves overall efficiency, and allows coroners to access and update case files at the crime scene.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said time is of the essence when dealing with crime scene investigations.
“You can start doing real-time documentation. Labels are automatically generated, reports are automatically generated, so you can go paperless,” says Harwood.
Harwood presented a practical, real-world scenario where this technology would be more useful than older systems.
“If we were to mark the manner of death as accidental. Historically in our system, we had to manually elicit accidental drug overdoses, accidental car crashes, and accidental pedestrian deaths. Now it’s dropped down in the menu so I can specifically pull them out,” Harwood says.
Kane, Kendall, and Will counties all use the same software, and more counties are likely to follow, Harwood said.
