ERAVE News

The Arkansas Department of Health has officially started the Electronic Registration of Arkansas Vital Events (ERAVE) project! Kickoff meetings with the ERAVE vendor were held during the week of April 6, 2009. Design sessions will begin August 2009.

What is ERAVE?

The ERAVE will facilitate electronic communication from the time of the event (birth or death) through the registration of the record. A variety of stakeholder groups, hospitals, birthing facilities, hospice facilities, funeral homes, coroners, medical examiners, medical certifiers, local health units, and Department of Health central office staff, will use ERAVE to complete their work electronically. Access to ERAVE will be tightly controlled and based on the role and authority of each individual to ensure that users have access to only the information necessary to complete their work.

Electronic Vital Records Project

Arkansas is taking a phased approach to the implementation of ERAVE. Phase I included planning, definition of requirements, and vendor selection. Phase II, which began April 2009, will include the design, configuration, testing, and rollout of Electronic Death Registration (EDR). Phase III, configuration of Electronic Birth Registration (EBR), will not begin until after go-live of EDR.

Stakeholder Involvement

ERAVE stakeholders include funeral homes, hospitals, hospice facilities, coroners, medical examiners, medical certifiers, county and circuit clerks, local health units, and Department of Health central office staff. A Stakeholder Advisory Committee has been established to help guide the process and facilitate communications between these stakeholder groups. Stakeholders have already been involved in defining the requirements of the ERAVE. Representatives from each identified group will be involved in system design, configuration, and testing. This will ensure that we benefit from the expertise of longtime specialists in the field and are able to address the needs of those who will be regular users of the system.

Electronic Death Registration (EDR)

The primary purpose of an EDR system is to enable the participants of death registration to file death records with local and state Registrars electronically. An EDR system provides for on-line access so that decedent fact-of-death and cause-of-death information can be registered electronically by multiple death registration participants working on the same case.

EDR System Features

General features of the EDR system include:

• Highly secure and Internet-accessible

• Faster death registration, which will speed turnaround time for obtaining certified copies for families

• Available 24 hours/day, 7 days/week

• Improves fraud prevention by using electronic authentication

• Improves timeliness and quality of death data

• On-line help and instructions built into the system

• Help desk support

For funeral directors:

• Can eliminate the need to physically track down medical certifiers
• Reduces errors by verifying the decedent's SSN by automatically matching with SSA files.
• No longer need to file 721 form

• Allows the printing of forms at the funeral home, such as burial transit permits and cremation permits

• Supports electronic trade calls between funeral homes.

• Provides the capability to electronically order certified copies for the family

For medical certifiers:

• Reduces errors and rejection of death certificates

• Promotes uniformity of cause-of-death statistics

• Includes instructions for filling out cause-of-death

• Improves disease surveillance

• Automates referral to the medical examiner and/or coroner

• Allows electronic cremation approval

• Provides for electronic submission of supplemental cause-of-death information for pending investigations

• Provides two methods of electronically completing cause-of-death information:

1.   Medical certifier logs onto ERAVE and keys the information online.
   
   
2. Fax Attestation. The funeral director and medical certifier work together by faxing the information back and forth. To see a work flow of the process, go to this website: http://www.acordex.com/solutions/vital/flow.html.

EDR Benefits for Funeral Directors

Download the brochure "What Funeral Directors Should Know About Electronic Death Registration"

PDF

EDR Benefits for Medical Certifiers

Download the brochure "What Hospitals and Physicians Should Know About Electronic Death Registration"

PDF

Electronic Birth Registration (EBR )

This section will be updated once the Electronic Death Registration goes live in 2011 and 2012. See EDR above.

Contact Information

Steve Whisnant, ERAVE Field Representative, (501) 661-2635

Links

National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) - www.naphsis.org