PH+Reporting+User+Story+-+Maine+CDC+DRVS

include component="page" wikiName="siframework" page="PHRI Header" =User Story: Maine CDC - Data Research and Vital Statistics=

Contact Info:
Kristine Perkins (Kristine.Perkins@maine.gov)

Date Received:
11/14/2011

Let’s say you live in Northeastern Lubec, Maine and you need the birth, death, marriage and divorce records for a parent. If all those events happened in Lubec, you would just go to the Lubec Town Office. In 5 or 10 minutes, you’d have what you need.

But, what if your parent was born in Jackman, even further north; married in Kittery on the southern border; divorced inmid-stateBangor; and died in Fort Kent on the northern Canadian border?

Without the existence of the Maine CDC, Data Research and Vital Statistics (DRVS) office within the Department of Health and Human Services (Maine’s central repository for over 4 million birth, death, marriage and divorce records) you would have to drive 1,750 miles (about 31 hours of drive time) to collect those records from the town clerk in Jackman, Kittery, Bangor and Fort Kent.

Since its establishment in 1892,the Maine CDC Data,Research and Vital Statistics office has been processing requests and providing copies of these documents according to State law and rules. Until recently, producing those documents hadn’tchanged much in 119 years. File clerks at the central office in Augusta, the state capitol,would have combed through more than 800 birth, 700 death, 600 marriage and 300 death file boxes to find one document in millions of records. Each box contains over 1,000 documents. It’s impressive that an average document request is completed in only 20 minutes.However, compared to “googling” a topic, that’s slow. The average Google search produces 11 million ranked results in 0.20 seconds from over 1 trillion indexed pages.

 Beginning in April of 2011; DRVS has worked collaboratively with the Maine Office of Information Technology (OIT) on a Backfile Conversion project to electronically scan and image paper records, converting those to electronic files. Currently, more than 3 million documents have been scanned; all birth and death records from 1956-2011 have been completely indexed; and as of September 26, 2011, copies of birth and death certificates within this timeframe are being issued using the electronic records. The transition improve s the timeliness of providing vital records information to the public and support public health and the administration of law. Since the new process has been in place, vital records staff have reported that the process to issue a certified copy has been reduced from approximately 20 minutes to 5 minutes. This is allowing staff to catch up on data entry of the 2011 paper records into the Maine’s new electronic birth and death registrations systems and continue training with community partners to implement these systems.

Supporting Files:
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