JUNE/JULY 2017 EDITION
FROM THE DIRECTOR'S DESK

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. If you have an inquiry you’d like to submit for inclusion in an upcoming issue, simply let me know!


Q1: How do we access forms, statutes, regulations, and information electronically?  

A1: Go to https://dph.georgia.gov/training-materials-0 to access training materials and information including Title 31 Code & Regulations for Vital Records, easy reference guides, training videos, powerpoint presentations, and webinars. For example, I recorded a webinar on “Paternity Acknowledgements, Legitimations, and Rescissions” as a result of the law change that occurred last summer. Under Resources>Forms you can find a listing of forms that have been recently updated for your use in your vital records operation. 

Q2: What is the difference between a local registrar and a custodian?  

A2: In today’s world – there is no difference. When Title 31 was written and last updated, the custodian and the registrar were two distinct roles.  In the past, records were held locally as original records and used by the registrar for issuance. In the last fifty years, we’ve seen a shift whereby the local registrars were required to send original records to the State Office, and in the last 30 years, we’ve seen an electronic system come online which allowed a central repository for records to be accessed by any county in Georgia. Today, a person born in Toombs county can purchase their birth record in any of our 159 county offices as well as the State Office. Additionally, with electronic and digitized records, there’s really no reason for a custodian locally. Why? Because the records are accessed via the State’s system for issuance.  If you have original records in your local office, please contact Gwen Duffin, Deputy State Registrar, and let her know. 

Mark your calendars now for the State Office of Vital Records 2017 Registrar Meetings and Webinars!! This year’s meetings will be held throughout the state in October, and will allow the Vital Records Leadership team an opportunity to communicate, standardize, and provide governance to you our local partners. 
OCTOBER DATES

October 03, 2017 Bibb County
October 04, 2017 Lumpkin County
October 11, 2017 Dougherty County
October 12, 2017 Emanuel County
October 18, 2017 Clayton County 
WEBINAR

September 27, 2017, 10am – 11am, topic will be announced as we get closer to the meeting dates. More information regarding locations, and registration will follow.
CONSTITUENTS' CORNER

Excellent customer service starts with the handling of each customer request.  From time to time we run into problems fulfilling customer certificate orders in the local county offices.  For example, if a customer requests a record that is incomplete or has a flag on it in GAVERS there are ways that you can help them.  The best way is for the local county office to submit a GAVERS help-desk ticket to fix the problem.  When the help-desk ticket is completed the customer will be able to return to their local county office to obtain a copy of the record. You are encouraged to get the customer’s telephone number to contact them when the record is ready and to inform them at the time that there is a problem that will take up to 72 hours to address.

We do not encourage you to give customers the ZoHo ticket number, or encourage them to call or visit the State Office to fix the problem.  This can frustrate the customer (requiring them to go to two locations instead of one to be helped); it can result in a duplication of effort at the State Office (processing the ZoHo ticket and helping a walk-in customer), and can slowdown the process.  We encourage you to submit the ticket, inform your customer that it can take up to 72 hours to complete the request.  If the problem needs to be addressed in less than 72 hours make note of it when the ticket is submitted to receive priority processing.

We are your processing partner and want to make each customer contact an excellent customer service experience.

THE STATE OFFICE OF VITAL RECORDS OPENS NEW LOCATION

On April 26, 2017, Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D., Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, officially opened the new location of the State Office of Vital Records.  Our new state-of-the-art home is located at 1680 Phoenix Boulevard in Clayton County.  

The State Office was previously located in a 1940s schoolhouse.  The state bought that building for a dollar about 15 years ago.  The office lacked Wi-Fi and cable connectivity and the internet often went out leaving employees and Georgians frustrated. 

“After years in an old school building that just wasn’t functional anymore, it was time for an upgrade,” said Fitzgerald. In addition to technological upgrades, 20 million records which were stored in three separate locations are now co-located at the new facility. 
(On April 26th we officially opened our doors. The Commissioner and our State Registrar pictured above cutting the ribbon during the "Ribbon Cutting Ceremony". )
NEW DEPUTY STATE REGISTRARS

I am pleased to announce that Gwendolyn Duffin and Sheila Pierce have both been named as Deputy State Registrars.   In this capacity, Sheila and Gwen have assumed more responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the State Office of Vital Records.  Both started their roles with the State Office in Autumn 2014.  Please join me in congratulating these leaders on their new roles.
Gwendolyn Duffin,
Deputy State Registrar
  Sheila Pierce
Deputy State Registrar
GAVERS TECHNICAL TIPS

In 2015, Microsoft released its new operating system known as Windows 10. It took some time, but most of our GAVERS users are now going through the upgrade process and are saying goodbye to Windows 7 or Vista. Windows 10 has many new features, such as a redesigned default browser, Microsoft Edge. Unfortunately, Microsoft Edge and GAVERS have some compatibility issues related to the viewing of PDFs. The easiest solution is to use the old browser, which is still a part of Windows 10 but somewhat hidden. You can invoke the old browser, Internet Explorer, by typing the words in the search field at the bottom of the screen (next to the Windows icon).  This will launch Internet Explorer and will allow GAVERS to continue to view and print PDFs.

For additional questions, please contact the GAVERS technical support team by clicking on the Report GAVERS Issue(s) link.

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 June 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. Atlanta Birth Center
2. Dorminy Medical Center
3. Grady General Hospital
4. Memorial Satilla Health
5. Tanner Medical Center Villa Rica

51 to 200 Births
1. Fairview Park Hospital
2. Gordon Hospital
3. Meadows Regional Medical Center
4. Phoebe Putney Memorial
5. South Georgia Medical Center

201 or More Births
1. Candler Hospital
2. Grady Health System
3. Memorial Helath University Medical Center
4. Piedmont Athens Regional
5. Wellstar Cobb Hospital
Average Days to Register a Birth


3.4
2.3
1.5
1.3
2.8


2.6
2.4
4.0
3.4
2.4


2.1
2.4
3.1
4.5
3.0

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.

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.

THE VITAL CONNECTION TEAM:
Donna Moore: State Registrar/Director
Cynthia Buskey-Martin: Program Administration Deputy Director
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 | andrea.dennis@dph.ga.gov | dph.georgia.gov/VitalRecords