SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION
Automated Vital Statistics System
Technical Advisory Group
2004 Annual Meeting
Sacramento, California
January 5, 2005
1. Introduction By Attendees and
Opening Statements.
Ron Williams (UCSB)
briefly reviewed the history of
Ron asked meeting
participants (about 50 individuals) to update contact information on the member
roster, which was distributed in the meeting packet.
2. Version 4.14 Update.
Version 4.14 Release
Notes were distributed at the meeting and are available at
www.avss.ucsb.edu. 4.14 is the name for
the 2004 version. It was Alpha-tested
and Beta-testing prior to release. This
Version was deployed during the months of November and December 2004 and became
effective January 1, 2005.
Meeting participants
reviewed the changes. Most changes
implemented revisions to the Medical Data Supplemental Worksheet, VS-10A. These changes effective 1/1/2005 included
Item 25D Principal Source of Payment for Prenatal Care, Item 28A Method of
Delivery and Item 28B Expected Source of Payment for Delivery. Additionally, changes effective 1/1/2006 will
include Item 29 Complications and Procedures of Pregnancy and Concurrent
Illnesses, Item 30 Complications and Procedures of Labor and Delivery and Item
31 Abnormal Conditions and Clinical Procedures Relating to the Newborn.
Melissa Reyes (OVR)
reported that OVR conducted 10 of 12 regional workshops that included
discussion of the changes implemented with Version 4.14, reviewed a table of
unknown values compiled by OHIR (2003 vs. 2004 data) and the fields with high
number of unknowns (date of last menses, mom’s education, mom’s race, prenatal
care began, number of prenatal visits).
About 400 birth clerks and local registrar staff have attended, as of
this
Ron reported on these
items:
1. A problem arose regarding printing outside
the box for item 28A. This problem was
quickly resolved.
2. Site of Care has not yet implemented changes
to conform to Version 4.14 specifications, but will do so by the middle of
January 2005. Work continues with Kaiser
Southern California to convert them to AVSS.
Alan Oppenheim (OVR)
distributed a
Alan reported that
Version 4.14 does not contain changes to implement AB 205, the CA Domestic
Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003. He urged meeting participants to review
All-County Letter No. 04-14, which explains how to register a birth certificate
for the child of State-registered domestic partners. Until AVSS is modified to accommodate the
domestic partner act, birth clerks should enter “YES” in response to the question
on whether the mother was married at any time during the pregnancy. This response will allow the partner’s name
to be entered in Fields 6A-6C.
3. AVSS Modification Requests
(AMRs): Review and Discussion.
01-090:
Ron Williams presented this issue, which relates to printing
problems. Ron suggested that the AVSS
project develop capability for “plain paper” printing of four vital records
forms – VS 10D, VS 24(S), VS 24(L), and VS 24A.
Michael Rodrian (OVR) suggested this issue be further researched to
examine issues related to paper stock and fraud prevention, as well as county
costs for Postscript printers.
03-073:
The group discussed AVSS/
04-126:
Alan Oppenheim noted that 16 percent of California birth records lack a
complete date for LMP. Alan noted that,
at regional workshops, OVR staff is stressing the need for complete dates in
this field. A possible solution involves
an AVSS warning, advising the birth clerk to provide an estimated date or, when
no information is available, to enter “unknown” but not to leave the field
blank. The group agreed that this topic
needs further discussion.
04-130:
John Marinko (UCSB) advised the group that the AVSS help desk can now
provide assistance to help counties create a tab-delimited file from the
04-141:
The group discussed appropriate entry routines for field 40 Place of
Final Distribution on the death certificate when field 41 Type of
Disposition(s) is a CR/
4.
New
Birth Certificate in 2006.
Alan reported that Karen Flanigan of
5.
AVSS
Excellence Award.
Ron presented Peter Chen (UCSB) with a 25 years of service
plaque and discussed some of Peter’s contributions to the AVSS project,
including developing of the report generator.
6.
AVSS/
Ron distributed information on deployment status and the
deployment plan for AVSS/
7.
CMR.
Stan Bissell (
8.
EDRS.
Mike Rodrian described the background to EDRS and reported
on the status of electronic death registration.
2003 legislation requires DHS to develop an EDRS that is operational in
at least one county by January 2005. DHS
has been contracting with UC Davis for development of the prototype EDRS. DHS staff are working with UC Davis on this
project. UC Davis has developed a web
site to keep counties apprised of the status of the project – http://edrs.ucdavis.edu.
Two counties, Yolo and Riverside, are operating pilot
project versions of the EDRS.
9.
Census
Tracting.
Ron gave a progress report, discussed implementation on
AVSS/
10.
AVSS
Technical Assistance.
Ron Williams discussed funding for AVSS technical assistance
activities and distributed a letter describing the AVSS technical assistance
funding for FY 2005-06. Included in the
letter was an explanation of the fee formula for FY 2004-05. He reminded the group that the AVSS project
relies on financial support from the State and LRDs.
11. Next
Meeting
The next
12.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
Acknowledgement: This summary was written by Jessica
McCarroll.
