NOVEMBER 2017 EDITION

FROM THE DIRECTOR'S DESK

This section of our newsletter is where we take time to respond to your inquiries. If you have an inquiry you’d like to submit for inclusion in an upcoming issue, simply let us know. Q1 : If someone has a permanent custody order — can they request a birth certificate if their child is over the age of 18? A1 : Yes. Individuals with permanent custody have the same rights as biological and adoptive parents. Q2 : Why do we encrypt emails? A2: By encrypting emails, confidential documents and data are protected and made unreadable to anyone except the intended recipients. These emails contain complex algorithms that jumbles data and can only be unlocked by the recipient that holds the encryption key. This means that, even if cyber thieves download agency sensitive data or documents, they're out of luck unless they also have the encryption key.

CONSTITUENTS' CORNER: INFANT DEATH REGISTRATION IMPROVEMENT PROJECT Recently, we had an opportunity to speak with Assumpta Ulasi, Vital Records Infant Death Registration QI project leader, to discuss the reason this QI project was created and how this project plans to remedy the problems it has identified with infant death registration. Along with Assumpta and Deputy Director Chris Harrison, project sponsor, the QI project team consists of internal and external stakeholders such as hospitals, funeral homes, county offices, and State Office staff. The Vital Records Infant Death Registration QI project was designed to decrease the amount of days it takes to enter infant death certificates into GAVERS. This has been a compliance issue for a very long time, according to Ulasi. When a record is not entered into GAVERS, it can unfortunately cause a chain reaction of misinformation. Delaying the entry of an infant death record in GAVERS can cause under-reporting due to the record not being accounted for by the State of Georgia. Currently, it takes an average of 89 days to register an infant death into GAVERS. The goal, after full implementation, is to be in compliance and register each infant death into GAVERS within 10 days. Additionally, there have been some restraining factors causing the current registration rate to occur. Some of those factors include miscommunication between the hospital and funeral homes at the time of pick up as well as errors found on paperwork. The most common error made is distinguishing between infant and fetal deaths. Furthermore, after researching current processes, the QI team identified that there were several inconsistencies in the process of registering infant deaths. One of its missions is to streamline the process to increase cohesiveness. Lastly, this QI project is very special in that it follows the PDCA cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act, which refers to a continuous and ongoing effort to achieve measurable improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, performance, accountability, outcomes, as well as other indicators in quality of service.

GAVERS TECHNICAL TIPS Often times County offices experience issues when trying to release a record after it has been dropped to paper by the funeral home. The County office of record will receive a message stating “the record is owned by another location”. If the County office is certain of the fact that the death occurred in their county, they may proceed by taking the following steps: 1.        Retrieve the record from the unresolved work queue 2.        Click Registration and select de-verify 3.        A message will appear stating

By clicking yes the demographic information will become enabled.  Select Demographic 5 tab and re-enter the funeral service licensee information and tab through the date verified field Click save Click Registration and select Release The record will be registered with the state office

BIRTH QUALITY SCORE EXPLANATION  The birth quality score for each facility takes into account the timeliness and the completeness of all births registered by a facility within a given month. According to Georgia Code § 31-10-9 all live births should be registered within 5 days, so we use this as the standard for timeliness. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provides national benchmarks for what should be an acceptable or expected percent of “unknown” or “missing” responses for the various demographic and medical questions on the birth work sheet, and we use those benchmarks to set our target limits for missing or unknown levels. A facility’s score is calculated like this: 100 – (15 x [% of births registered late]) – [# fields exceeding unknown/missing limit] To put that in more concrete terms: If a facility registered 10% of births late that would result in a loss of 1.5 points (10% of 15 = 1.5) If a facility exceeded the unknown/missing limit for 5 items that would result in a loss of 5 points The total score for that facility would then be 100 – 1.5 – 5 = 93.5  The details of how a score was calculated for a particular facility can be found on the individual Birth Data Quality Report that is sent to each birth hospital every month. See below for an example Birth Data Quality Report with an explanation of how this facility’s score would be calculated.

In this instance the final score for ABC Hospital would be 100 – 1.59 – 5 = 93.41. If you have any questions about your facilities score or would like more insight into how the score was calculated please contact your regional consultant.

BIRTH RECORD RATINGS: THE TOP FACILITIES

Congratulations to the following medical facilities whose October ratings for timeliness and completeness have placed them in the top rankings in the state of Georgia. The scores were calculated using the new, stricter standards from NCHS.

Rank                                           50 or Fewer Births 1. Wayne Memorial Hospital 2. Phoebe Sumter medical Center 3. Tanner Medical Center Villa Rica 51 to 200 Births 1. Phoebe Putney Memorial 2. South Georgia Medical Center 3. Piedmont Newton Hospital 201 or More Births 1. Candler Hospital 2. Memorial Health University Medical Center 3. Medical Center of Central Georgia

Average Days to Register a Birth 1.4 2.4 2.9 3.0 2.5 3.3 2.2 2.2 2.6

DEATH REGISTRATION CYCLE We appreciate all of the work our counties do to complete death records, and we look forward to working with you to improve death registration cycle time, and in doing so, improve our ability to monitor the health and well-being of our Georgia residents.

NOVEMBER 2017 60 or Fewer Deaths Per Year Montgomery County (20 Death Records Filed, 75.0%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Echols County (11 Death Records Filed, 72.7%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Lanier County (59 Death Records Filed, 71.2%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) 61 to 120 Deaths Per Year Brantley County (109 Death Records Filed, 82.6%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Pierce County (95 Death Records Filed, 80.0%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Bacon County (120 Death Records Filed, 71.7%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) 121 to 240 Deaths Per Year Towns County (170 Death Records Filed, 82.4%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Berrien County (145 Death Records Filed, 75.9%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days) Tattnall County (166 Death Records Filed, 72.3%of Death Records Filed within 10 Days)

VITAL RECORDS GEORGIA CODE & REGULATIONS The State Office of Vital Records is making it easy and convenient for you to access our code and regulations on the go. We have provided a link below for quick access.  Click here for Georgia Code. Click here for Rules and Regulations.

CONTACT INFORMATION

REGIONAL TRAINING & SUPPORT MANAGER Joseph Little joseph.little@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2952 or (404) 863-4832

REGIONAL CONSULTANT (EAST) Cheryl Berry-Desbordes cheryl.desbordes@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2938 or (404) 956-0124 REGIONAL CONSULTANT (SOUTH) Kamilah Traylor kamilah.traylor@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2941 or (404) 901-1615

REGIONAL CONSULTANT (NORTH) Justin Davis justin.davis@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2940 or (404) 414-9216 REGIONAL CONSULTANT (WEST) Mannett Foster mannett.foster@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2943 or (404) 901-1634

REGIONAL COORDINATOR Crystal Myers crystal.myers@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2947 GAVERS SUPPORT Technical Support (404) 679-4745

REGIONAL COORDINATOR Quentoria Hutcherson quentoria.hutcherson@dph.ga.gov (770) 909-2939 STATE OFFICE OF VITAL RECORDS Contact Center (404) 679-4702

THE VITAL CONNECTION TEAM: Donna Moore: State Registrar/Director Cynthia Buskey-Martin: Program Administration Deputy Director Akilah McGhee: Compliance and Communications Manager D’Andre Mayberry: Instructional Designer Vital Records Staff: Content and Topic Contributors

Georgia Department of Public Health | State Office of Vital Records | Phone: (404) 679-4702 | Fax: (404) 679-4730 | akilah.mcghee@dph.ga.gov | dph.georgia.gov/VitalRecords