The child death review process provides an opportunity to understand the risk factors and circumstances leading to a child’s death and guide prevention activities in your community. In order to capture this valuable information, local teams are encouraged to enter case data into the National Fatality Review Case Reporting System (CRS). The Alliance strives to assist teams in gathering complete data and entering the data into the CRS in a timely manner so that important details are not forgotten.

To guide teams in timely data entry, the Alliance provides local teams with timeliness benchmarks in the child death review process. These are based upon guidelines from the Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) Case Registry but can be applied to all types of child death. If each of the benchmarks is met, a case will be complete within 270 days of a child’s death.

  1. Identify cases for review within 30 days of death.
  2. Review the cases within 90 days of identification.
  3. Enter the case data into the CRS within 30 days of review.
  4. If the case is a SUID, respond to the Alliance clarifications regarding the case within 120 days of data entry.

A team may not meet all benchmarks for every case. For example, a review cannot be held until the investigation is complete. However, these benchmarks provide goals for teams to ensure the valuable information shared at a review meeting is captured in the CRS to guide the team’s prevention recommendations.