The Carbon County Coroner’s office has come a long way over the years, improving technology, creating a partnership that expanded office space and working to close investigations quicker.

“It’s been an interesting year,” said Coroner Mark Smith on Thursday.

He provided the county commissioners with an overview of what his office completed last year during the board’s biweekly meeting.

Smith said that his office has “streamlined the investigative process,” which allows staff to get on site quicker, work with law enforcement and interact with families. The coroner’s office consists of Smith, as well as one chief deputy coroner and six deputy coroners.

“Our goal is to have a representative from our office on scene within an hour. We’ve been more or less aiming for 45 minutes and we’ve been meeting that,” he said.

The changes implemented in the coroner’s office, with a partnership through St. Luke’s that allows for office space has also allowed Smith and his staff to increase efficiency in the way their investigations are done and cut down on the costs for the county by utilizing grants to upgrade technology.

He used the Randox Evidence MultiStat Analyzer as an example of increasing efficiency while cutting down cost. The piece of equipment was purchased through the Opioid Settlement Funds for use on any suspected drug-related deaths.

“We have used it twice so far this year,” Smith said of the machine that went into operation last month. “On both of those occasions, we were able to save the county the cost of two autopsies. On the first one we did, we ran the numbers and also sent the sample out to the lab just to have a comparison done. It was right on. It’s a reliable tool and will also help us going forward in trying to get families answers quicker.”

Coupled with this new equipment, the coroner’s office has also received access to the EPIC system, which is used by health care systems nationally, with some of the health systems regionally.

This access “provides the coroner’s office with the ability to promptly and comprehensively review the medical records of decedents, facilitating a more thorough examination.”

Smith said that while the office has made several advancements, there are still some challenges he needs to work on including the fact that unclaimed remains of loved ones seem to be on the rise.

He said that so far this year, the county has had three individuals whose remains were not claimed by loved ones following their death.

In cases like this, the coroner’s office stores the person’s ashes in the event a family member comes forward at a later time; however this may not continue to be the case.

“Our society is changing,” Smith said. “People just don’t take responsibility for family members the way they used to and it’s a shame. But let me emphasize this, even in those cases where we have to handle that, we still treat those people with the utmost respect and dignity in going through the process. We don’t throw them in the corner and just forget about them. They are handled with dignity but we need to address this. We need a policy on how many days we are going to hold them before we can release them.”

In the past, Carbon County has interred these individuals in a cemetery owned by the county in the Weatherly area and that may be part of a future discussion, Smith said.