Medical Examiner Spotlight: Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office

Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office (MEO) in Olathe, Kansas, opened its new office in June 2020. In 2019, the MEO began a campaign to educate hospice agencies, hospitals and law enforcement to ensure deaths were being properly reported. As a result of the outreach campaign, the number of deaths being reported to the MEO more than doubled from 2019 to 2020. Along with this increased number of referred deaths came an opportunity for increased tissue/eye donors. MTN and the MEO worked together to develop an electronic referral system for non-hospital reported deaths.

MTN received 313 referrals for organ and tissue recovery from Johnson County agencies in 2021. The Johnson County MEO referred 217 cases for postmortem tissue donation, comprising 69% of the total Johnson County referrals for the year. Of these 217 referrals, 33% of the decedents became postmortem tissue donors.

These tissue referrals resulted in 65 dermis donors, 53 bone donors, 32 cornea/eye donors and 28 heart valve donors. MTN values the partnership with Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office, as their continued support of donation provides lifesaving and healing gifts to thousands of grateful recipients each year.