Addressing Discrepancies in Death Investigations with DIER: Student Veteran Michael Gigis’ Forensic Informatics Application

Oct 20, 2022

For United States Army Veteran Michael Gigis, retirement hasn’t been so much about spending time on the beach as it’s been about spending time in the coroner’s office. A Master of Science in Forensic Nursing graduate, Gigis officially left the military in 2016 and has been furthering his education with Xavier University ever since, earning his master’s in 2020 and now teaching as an adjunct professor while working towards his Doctor of Nursing Practice in Population Health Leadership (DNP).

“After retiring, I wanted to start a new career that complemented the leadership skills I’d gained but lacked the prerequisites to make it past many university doors. That wasn’t the case with Xavier,” said Gigis. “Here, my previous experience wasn’t just accepted, it was saluted — and the continual encouragement, support, and guidance I’ve received have helped me advance my ideas for DIER into reality.”

DIER — or Death Investigation Electronic Record — is a clinical informatics application designed to increase the efficiency of data collection in death scene investigations by incorporating auto-complete data fields and database synchronization. With no current standardized method used by local, state, or federal organizations to report the information identified during these investigations, Gigis and his team hope their project will reduce common inconsistencies that often lead to time delays in completing necessary investigative analyses.

“Without my time at Xavier, this project wouldn’t have progressed past the idea phase,” Gigis said. “It was in my MSN clinical rotation that I first came up with the idea; it was with my capstone partner, Shaunna DeLorie, that I progressed that idea into an actual concept; and it was our program director, Dr. Angela Liggett, who supported that concept and encouraged us to cultivate it. She believed our project would fulfill a crucial community need and even attended a conference of medical examiners and coroners with me to further flesh out the details.” 

Designed as an expandable investigative tool, DIER is set up to walk deputies step-by-step through any scenario they may encounter in the field, instantaneously creating a record of the investigation while acting as a case management system for the coroner. According to Gigis, this is key in streamlining communication among stakeholders, especially since the total budget for supplies, training, payroll, and staffing is less than $100,000 — meaning the deputies conducting these investigations often have very little formal training in forensics.

“DIER provides a process to follow for each unique death scenario,” he explained. “The investigative concerns with a drowning, for example, would be different from the investigative concerns with a sudden unexplained infant death (SUID). On a drowning, one would be concerned with where the body was found, where the person entered the water, if the drowning was witnessed, etc. If the death was a SUID, one would be concerned with the condition of the body, time of death, who was home, what was in bed with the infant, etc.”

Due to the dynamic nature of death scenes — and thanks to the imagination of the team’s expert programmer, Scott Lloyd — DIER is prepared to integrate new technologies and information as they become available, enabling future expansion. This high level of accessibility supports the team’s goal of having their technology utilized on a national level to increase compliance, reduce the chance of errors in data collection, provide immediate access to critical data, and allow for resource allocation and research.

But while DIER will soon be leaving Xavier University for service across the nation, Gigis’ inspiration and encouragement will remain in the details — details that have been nurtured from DIER’s inception.

“The investigative and examination processes greatly reflect what I’ve learned at Xavier,” he said. “This university taught me to embrace and apply my leadership skills; to partner with diverse experts to achieve a common goal; and, perhaps most importantly, to take a project from concept to practice in the name of justice.”

 

Written By: Shelly Kelley