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You asked and we’re answering, straight from the director’s desk!
Q. Who is responsible for entering long form death records and “drop to paper” death records?
A. Technically, the local county vital records registrar is responsible for entering long form death records and quasi-electronic records that have been started in GAVERS and dropped to paper. Ninety percent of our funeral homes are on GAVERS, so the record has been started in the system. Only 25% of our physicians are on GAVERS, a majority of whom still certify “on paper”. The funeral home will bring those papers to you to enter into the system. In the future, we hope to eliminate the use of long forms altogether!
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CONSTITUENTS' CORNER
THE STATE OFFICE'S DIGITIZATION PROJECT IS NOW LIVE!
We are so pleased to announce that as of September 19th, in just a little over a year, the State Office’s Digitization project is now live, and all 159 counties are able to access vital records and reap the benefits of this process! In our August 2015 newsletter, we informed you that planning for digitization was underway and explained what digitization is and the benefits it would afford you. As a reminder of what this means to you, a few benefits of digitization include: eliminates costs associated with accessing paper records, allows the capability to protect historical records electronically, and provides faster and efficient retrieval of records for our constituents.
As a part of the improved timeliness, we will no longer require abstraction into GAVERS for ALL requests. Our team will e-mail a copy of the original to you for issuance to the customer via encrypted e-mail. Some requests will still require entry into GAVERS. An example would be a record without a state file number or a record that is illegible.
Although oftentimes the copy of the original we send you will be the same as the version you have as a custodial copy, do not issue certificates from your custodial copies. Custodial copies are not always the most recent version of the document, and you may not be aware that a change has been made. Several months ago the State Office issued guidance to you on the practice of sharing, faxing, or copying and sending custodial copies. Please adhere to the guidance provided.
Should you have questions regarding digitization or abstraction, please contact your regional consultant or Regional Training and Support Manager, Joseph Little by
clicking here.
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THANK YOU!
On October 25th, 26th, 27th and November 2nd, the State Office held its fourth Quarterly Registrars’ Training in Pickens, Houston, and Cook counties. Thank you to all 197 attendees who joined us! Your participation and feedback was greatly appreciated. We look forward to seeing you at our next training.
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WHAT SHOULD LOCAL OFFICES EXPECT DURING A SITE VISIT?
Each Regional Consultant (RC) is assigned to County Vital Records Offices based on 4 territories (North, South, East, and West). RCs are subject matter experts on Vital Records functions and provide training support and communication regarding Vital Records policies and procedures to local constituents. They also conduct regular reviews of local registrars to ensure compliance and are the primary contact for local County Vital Records Offices when they have questions or concerns. Listed below are a few categories of vital importance that your RC will assess during a site visit:
- Technical (e.g. current site GAVERS users and former users requiring deactivation)
- Building Security (e.g. restricted access, paper secured, and secured records)
- Security Paper (e.g. use and discard appropriately-shred)
Security Paper checks are conducted annually and as needed. RCs are responsible for monitoring their assigned counties for adhering to security paper issuance guidelines set forth below:
- Missing security paper document control numbers (DCN)
- Duplicate security paper document control numbers (DCN)
- Voids out of place and/or voided properly
- Doc Sequence issues (ensure usage and issuance in sequential order and correct printer designations etc.)
Findings are shared with the State Registrar, Local Registrar, and Deputy Director for Records Management. Once issues have been identified, RCs work with the local registrar to resolve them. For questions regarding additional expectations, please contact your local regional consultant by
clicking here.
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BIRTH QUALITY SCORE EXPLORATION
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.
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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.
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GAVERS TECHNICAL TIPS
Funeral homes often look for embalmers information to be present in GAVERS in the form of a drop-down list or searchable option. GAVERS doesn’t provide such options, but it does allow you to enter the information in section “Demographic 5”. GAVERS will allow you to enter the embalmers first, middle, and last name, in addition to their license number. If such information is not applicable or not available, you may just hit the “tab” key and leave the information blank.
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BIRTH RECORD RATINGS: THE TOP FACILITIES
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Congratulations to the 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. Click on the link below to see the birth record ratings for October 2016.
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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.
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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.
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Georgia Department of Public Health | State Office of Vital Records | Phone: (404) 679-4702 |
Fax: (404) 679-4730 | andrea.dennis@dph.ga.gov | dph.georgia.gov/VitalRecords
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