The forensic Solution

Forensic medicine requirements are extensive and constantly increasing.  Shadow addresses an important concern of being able to centrally store complete documentation of the cases, exhibits, findings and expertise.  SHADOW includes various processes and functions for the various departments of forensic medicine. This can mainly be divided into the following subjects:

• Forensic Molecular Biology
• Forensic chemistry and toxicology
• Forensic Medicine / Virtopsy
• Forensic Psychiatric Service
• Transport medical psychology and psychiatry
• Forensic Ballistics

The work processes in forensic medicine are complex, but, unfortunately, are often too structured and driven by external influences.  The variety of organizational interactions to internal departments or third parties such as police, courts, prisons, other authorities, or to test persons and relatives places high demands on the organization.  Technical interfaces in the different laboratories to analysis equipment and instruments are a challenge concerning data exchange, data management, data quality and processing.

The typical computer science solution utilized in forensic medicine consists of numerous different solutions that, only in part, "automatically" point to each other, otherwise it is with manual interfaces or not at all.  I.e. the data must be re-recorded, which inevitably leads to data redundancies, data errors, and finally, to increased costs.  Often the various solutions are technologically incompatible.   Although there are some laboratory software systems for individual areas of forensic medicine, such as DNA or alcohol analysis, but no solution exists to the full range of forensic medicine.

The POHN IT-Consulting GmbH has developed the first, fully integrated, Information sytem for forensic medicine institutes - SHADOW - together with the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Bern.  This development was preceded by a nearly two-year evaluation process.  In this phase, various standard software packages as well as on the market available laboratory solutions have been tested regarding their possible use.  The Institute of Forensic Medicine, Bern came to the conclusion that only an integrated solution, fully able to cover the diversity of needs, both existing and future, could manage these needs.

SHADOW - a software tool for forensic medicine.

SHADOW is a modern, object-oriented application, which was developed using a flexible "application framework". To assist users in their demanding daily work, SHADOW can be operated together with the blackpearl workflow system from K2. This enables the implementation of work processes in SHADOW and thus an efficient way of working.

The functionality of SHADOW is very comprehensive and contains the essential requirements of forensic medicine.

For more information, please visit our products website shadow.pohn.com