Explanation
BACKGROUND:
This legislation authorizes the Director of the Department of Technology on behalf of the Columbus Public Health Department, to enter into a contract with Streamline Health, to provide the services of an automated vendor hosted vital records management system, inclusive of use of the vendor's associated software, license, maintenance and support services. The Columbus Public Health Department currently has an application to store birth and death data, but does not do imaging or document management. The Columbus Public Health Department's Vital Statistics Program serves as a dual registration office for all Franklin County and City of Columbus birth and death events. In order to maintain quality of service and keep up with the growing demand for vital records, as well as comply with changes in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Regulations, Vital Statistics must update record keeping automation. The Franklin County Office of Vital Statistics must file and register birth and death certificates in compliance with Ohio Law, assist customers in timely correction of birth and death certificate errors, provide timely and accurate birth and death certificates to all applicants when requested, assist law enforcement with flagging birth certificates of missing children, and provide internal and external customers with statistical aggregate birth and death data when requested. These functions are currently performed manually, greatly reducing the ablility to process a high volume of documents. Due to the changing state and federal vital records requirements, the Columbus Public Health Department has an urgent need to have accessibility to an updated automated vital statistics records management system that will accommodate the department's service needs as well as their customers.
The newly enacted Public Records Law has brought additional demands for access to public records, since certain portions of vita...
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