The following are recommendations for policies and procedures to comply with current CAP requirements for gross photography:
- Full external and face identification photographs must be taken before prosection.
- In situ internal photographs must be taken before evisceration.
- All the digital photographs and folders must be labeled with the Autopsy Case Number.
- Photographs are to be taken of all lesions and other features of interest.
- When taking pictures of gross organs, the background must be clean and the specimen properly labeled.
- If the case is unusual, pictures should be taken of all major organs, including apparently normal organs, as the case might be used for either a conference or publication. These photographs will be uploaded into the pathology database or server.
- Monthly backup is to be performed by the hospital information technology storage team.
According to CAP and the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA 88), gross photographs taken during forensic autopsy are stored indefinitely.
