By this time next year, the county is scheduled to be operating its first ever medical examiner facility. What does this mean for Johnson County? We will have better resources and efficiencies to perform autopsies and death investigations. Public safety will be enhanced because this state-of-the art facility will use best practices and current technology for collecting evidence, optimizing our response to homicides, suspicious deaths and overdose cases. Additionally, our public health teams will be able to access real-time information to identify trends or emerging diseases.

Johnson County had long studied the need for our own resource to do this type of work. Currently, we outsource investigations for suspicious deaths to a privately-owned lab in Wyandotte County. In 2016, the county completed a study and determined we had grown to the point of needing a coroner facility. Through further study and discussion, we determined the county would move forward with a medical examiner instead of a coroner facility, allowing a greater expanse of services to be performed. It was further determined we would provide an accredited facility by meeting scientific requirements of the National Association of Medical Examiners (N.A.M.E.). In November 2016, Johnson County voters approved a 10-year, ¼ cent public safety sales tax to build a new medical examiner facility and a new courthouse.

(Read more: Shawnee Mission Post – Community news and events for northeast Johnson County)