SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION - AVSS TAG MEETING
Sacramento, California
July 1, 1998

AVSS TAG
Automated Vital Statistics System Technical Advisory Group
Core Members:
Pamela Isaac - Humboldt County
Deborah Martin - Alameda County
Alan Oppenheim - Office of County Health Services
Rod Palmieri - Office of Vital Records
Larry Portigal - Los Angeles County
Ronald Williams - University of California

1. Introduction By Attendees.
2. Opening Statements.
A. Review of minutes from November 24, 1997 TAG meeting.
B. Main purpose of this meeting is to discuss AMRs with approximately 200 received and acted on annually.
C. Attendee review, sign up sheet.
D. Activity status review, focus non-birth applications, and progress on bringing them online.
E. Request attendees to review and submit updates to the AVSS contact list as necessary.
F. Explain AMR factors: stress consistency and standardization.
3. AVSS Modification Request (AMR) Review and Discussion.
97-112: Review at a later date.
97-162: Review this afternoon.
97-187: OK to ignore scratched records in MISSING FILE NUMBER REPORT, but suggest also creating a new SCRATCHED RECORDS REPORT.
97-193: Submitted as point of information only.
97-195: Refers to new CMR report form-refer to 98-065.
98-009: OK.
98-015: Add batch census tracting suboption to CMR record-OK.
98-019: NO MORE EDITING At the LCA level: AGREED-this function had cascading effects at both State and Federal levels. Very few edits will be allowed, all others will require State approval.
98-025: LRN and LFN are equivalent terms. Local Registrars should be using the LRN log to record number assignments.
98-028: Approve; state policy allows the hospitals to do home births at their site.
98-031: EDR-discuss later.
98-035: OVR staff reports that mother's middle name could be a Common Core Data Element and thus AVSS should still verify a missing mother's middle name.
98-044: OK.
98-061: Withdrawn.
98-064: There was no representative from C43 to present this proposal, although some written remarks from Su Lin Wilkinson were presented by the chair. No support for this AMR from any TAG participants. CCLHO position is that local data usage is under the jurisdiction of the Health Officer. State position is that a statute change may be required as well as VSAC review.
98-072: Eliminate the MLN field from the LCA by not passing it on to the County. Leave it at the hospital level.
98-065: Implement the new CMR form/use same race codes as those used in Births and deaths. Keep race codes consistent.
4. Confidential Morbidity Report
A. Mark Starr reported that Communicable Disease would like to begin receiving DMR forms from all county sites. These would provide a quick view of timely suspect reports. He wants to develop and encourage a CMR users group. .
5. Electronic Death Records Registration System
AVSS/EDR pilot began on schedule on April 1, 1998. It followed EDRS specifications and the funeral directors generally like the system, however they don't use it for all certificates. Future direction is therefore somewhat uncertain.
Only about a third of the deaths were processed with AVSS/EDR due to a problem with obtaining MD signatures.
Orange County is looking for a system for death registration, and might want to become new pilot site.
Mike Rodrian indicated that the state is looking at other potential Death Registration systems. Apparently, New York has an Internet-based application.
6. AVSS Census Tracting
A. Introduction by Scott Shepard as to the work being done at DM for AVSS census tracting. Discussion about how to improve the data collection and quality control of addresses. Possible method would be the separate prompting for each piece of the street address (number, direction, street name, type) then put it all together as one long string.
7. AVSS Funding
A. Ron Williams reported that AVSS funding requirements for LRDs have been reduced.

Updated October 20, 1998 by RL Williams
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