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| What is EDRS? |
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EDRS stands for the Electronic Death Registration System which was the first module of the Oregon Vital Events Registration System (OVERS). EDRS is the electronic tool used to complete and register death certificates. EDRS completed roll out in July 2007 and is now in use statewide. The Center for Health Statistics continues to promote use of the system in funeral homes and medical facilities.
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| Are there other OVERS modules? |
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Yes. The Electronic Birth Registration System went live statewide on January 1, 2008. As funding allows, Oregon plans to add modules for marriage and divorce certificates, as well as statistical reporting for Induced Termination of Pregnancy in 2010. Fetal death is a component of EBRS and became active in August, 2008.
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| Are we required to use EDRS? |
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Although using EDRS is not mandatory, it is strongly encouraged. The use of EDRS allows the state and county to access the information more quickly and register a record automatically if there are no entries that require review by the State Vital Records office. In addition, the system checks for missing information and other edits that often result in rejected records and corrections. The state will continue to support paper certificates. Information on paper certificates will be entered into EDRS after the certificate is received by the State Vital Records office. However, funeral homes and medical certifiers will not have electronic access to records originally completed on paper.
Medical facilities are encouraged to use EDRS, but may also use funeral directors ‘drop to paper’ death certificates. Facilities should not initiate death certificates on the 3-ply paper form because this prevents funeral homes from using the EDRS system.
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| Will the fillable PDF go away? |
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Death certificates using the fillable PDF file are no longer accepted. All non-EDRS paper certificates must be submitted on the three-part, pre-printed forms, requiring a typewriter for completion.
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| Will older records be online? |
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Online death records will be available for viewing and amending by the funeral home or medical certifier for six months. After that, records must be amended by faxing or mailing correction affidavits to the State Vital Records office.
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| Are there other changes? |
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The overall process of completing and filing death certificates is much the same as it has been, except the fillable pdf certificate is no longer accepted. Funeral homes will continue to complete the personal information, medical certifiers will continue to fill in the medical information and county offices will issue certified copies. When using EDRS, data completion and printing is performed online by all users, rather than sending a piece of paper around. EDRS does support situations where one user is using OVERS and the other is not. In a common example, a funeral home completes their portion of the death certificate online, the prints out a copy to send to a medical certifier who is not using the system. This hybrid, ‘drop to paper’ process will decrease as more medical certifiers begin using EDRS.
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| Do I need to print/mail certs? |
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For fully electronic records, no. Online records are available to the funeral home, medical certifier, and county vital records staff through the system. OVERS users do not need to send certificates to other participants unless they are not using the system.
For drop-to-paper records, yes. Death certificates will need to be printed and mailed (or delivered) to the medical certifier or funeral director responsible for the remainder of the information on the record. Records should be forwarded to the county office for registration.
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| What access will staff have? |
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All medical, funeral home and county staff who process vital records – whether they are signers or not – can have access to EDRS. Access is limited to features needed for the particular user and/or facility. For example, funeral home users will not have access to birth certificate records and hospital birth clerks will not have access to death certificate records. Also, some features are limited to those authorized to sign vital records, such as the signature page.
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