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This section of our newsletter is where we take time to respond to your inquiries! Based on your responses to last year’s newsletter survey, we learned that the “Director’s Desk” is the most favorite, highest rated section of our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you. if you have an inquiry you’d like to submit for inclusion in an upcoming issue, simply submit it to your local regional consultant for review.
Q. Where do vital records certificate fees go?
A. Whether a probate judge operation or a department of health operation, the fees for birth and death certificates stay in the county. No certificate funds are sent to the State Office or the Department of Public Health from local offices. For the State Office, all vital records certificate fees are remitted to the Office of Treasury.
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CONSTITUENTS' CORNER
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
During this season we are taking time to reflect upon this past year and acknowledge those for whom we are grateful - our partners! Thank you for helping to shape our organization. The State Office of Vital Records and all of our county operations have made significant gains this past year. This past year, we’ve increased training opportunities through webinars and quarterly trainings and meetings, incorporated the use of technology to ensure consistency and efficiency in our processes using GAVERS Fee and Issuance, improved the quality of our customers’ experience by installing kiosks in our front lobby to reduce wait time, strengthened data security, and so much more. None of this would have been possible without your partnership. We are privileged to have you as our partners and look forward to our continued partnership in the New Year!
The following is a year-end review and comparison of our 2015 and 2016 dashboard metrics:
- The Contact Center’s single digit abandoned call rate decreased from 9.0% to 4.0%.
- The closure rate of customers’ GAVERS tickets within 72 hours increased from 82.8% to 90.9%.
- Death records certified electronically by clinicians increased from 16.7% to 26.1%.
- GAVERS training sessions offered and or requested increased from 38 to 64.
May this year bring you and your families continued health, happiness, and prosperity.
Donna Moore, State Registrar
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NEW REQUIREMENT FOR U.S. PASSPORT CUSTOMERS
In November of 2016, the Department of State's Office of Passport Services implemented a requirement that U.S. passport applicants submit a photocopy of their evidence of U.S. citizenship for retention by the office, in addition to the official or certified copy that is currently required and returned to the applicant. The official or certified copy will continue to be used to determine whether the applicant has a valid claim to U.S. citizenship. The photocopy will be retained by the Office of Passport Services for a complete and accurate record of documents submitted with the passport application. If customers are unable to submit a photocopy of their citizenship evidence, they must submit a second certified copy of the evidence or processing could be delayed.
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IT'S FINALLY HERE: STATE OFFICE'S WEBSITE REFRESH!
The State Office is pleased to share with you that we are in the final stages of refreshing our website! During the February 2016 Quarterly Registrars’ and Probate Judges’ Meetings, we announced that we had begun the process of refreshing our website. We’ve heard your requests for more information and resources, and we are ecstatic beyond measure to finally say that we have answered! On our website you’ll find training materials, Easy Reference Guides, webinars, PowerPoints, The Vital Connection newsletter archives, Georgia Code, DPH Administrative Rules and Regulations, fillable PDF forms, designated sections for registrars and funeral homes, and so much more! We hope that you will join in our excitement and take some time to explore our website at
http://dph.georgia.gov/VitalRecords .
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VITAL RECORDS PROCESSES: DID YOU KNOW?
PATERNITY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND LEGITIMATION
Findings from our 2016 newsletter survey and recent trainings reveal that your most common suggestion is to include a section in the newsletter that explains Vital Records processes. As a result, we are dedicating this new section of the newsletter to keeping you current regarding our processes.
In our April May 2016 newsletter, we shared specific information regarding Senate Bill 64, which eliminated voluntary acknowledgments of legitimation at the same time as paternity acknowledgement (also known as “administrative legitimation”) and made a number of changes to the Georgia Code that affected the Office of Vital Records. As a refresher, we have included some of the following specifics for your ease of reference. As of July 1, 2016, legitimation of babies born out of wedlock can be accomplished only (a) by court order, or (b) if dad marries mom and “recognizes such child as his own.” Voluntary acknowledgments of legitimation which were signed on or before June 30, 2016 are still valid. Legitimation is no longer coupled with the paternity acknowledgement process. Legitimation forms can be found on our website.
In compliance with the new law, the State Office has updated the Paternity Acknowledgement form (PA) and is no longer accepting older versions. The two most noticeable changes on the new form are that it does not contain the Administrative Legitimation section, and it is a fillable PDF, which can be downloaded from the Vital Records website under our Resources section
http://dph.georgia.gov/forms .
To help us process your PA without unnecessary delay, it must be notarized and must be filed with the State Office of Vital Records within thirty days of execution. Please also note that once a PA has been filed, any changes to the child’s name will require a court order.
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GAVERS TECHNICAL TIPS
You may notice that the GAVERS Tip in this issue is regarding the same tip we shared in our August September 2016 issue-Reporting GAVERS Technical Issues. So why are we sharing it again? We want to reduce the time it takes the State Office to search for a certificate and process a request. What we’ve noticed is that some GAVERS users either are not taking advantage of the ease of reporting online or are not providing sufficient information to process a request. Here’s how you can help!
It is highly recommended that in addition to providing a succinct description of the issue, the following pertinent information is included:
- Accurate State File Number (SFN) in the following desired format: 1999GA000011111
- Name on Certificate (If you know the record has changed, please provide the details as to what/when change occurred.)
- Type of certificate (e.g. birth or death)
- Date of birth\death of certificate holder
- Place of birth\death of certificate holder
- Mother’s name (including maiden name) on certificate
- Father’s name on certificate
Currently, 90% of tickets submitted on-line are completed within 72 hours. Thank you for your assistance in helping us to better assist you with GAVERS technical issues. Should you require additional information or training regarding use of the system, please contact your local regional consultant.
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BIRTH QUALITY SCORE EXPLANATION
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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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BIRTH RECORD RATINGS:
THE TOP FACILITIES
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Congratulations to the following medical facilities whose December 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.
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Rank
50 or Fewer Births
1. Irwin County Hospital 2. Tanner Medical Center Villa Rica 3. Union General Hospital 4. Bacon County Hospital 5. Dorminy Medical Center
51 to 200 Births
1. Medical Center of Central Georgia 2. St. Francis Hospital 3. Au Medical Center 4. Athens Regional Medical Center 5. South Georgia Medical Center
201 or More Births
1. Memorial Health University Medical Center 2. Grady Health System 3. Candler Hospital 4. Phoebe Putney Memorial 5. University Hospital Augusta
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Average Days to Register a Birth
2.1
3.4
2.4
2.1
1.8
2.2
2.9
3.0
3.5
2.6
2.1
2.1
2.0
3.4
2.1
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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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THE VITAL CONNECTION TEAM:
Donna Moore: State Registrar/Director
Cynthia Buskey-Martin: Program Administration Deputy Director
Andrea Dennis: Training and Communications Coordinator
D’Andre Mayberry: Instructional Designer
Vital Records Staff: Content and Topic Contributors
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Georgia Department of Public Health | State Office of Vital Records | Phone: (404) 679-4702 |
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