The Ohio Department of Health and Vital Statistics Office is responsible for the timely reporting and record keeping aspects of all Vital Record events that occur within the State of Ohio.

Challenge

The State had been issuing certified copies of records from paper to its constituents for many years. In 2006 the State implemented an electronic system which would change the way records were stored, data extracted, and vital records issued for documents. Vital record documents that needed to be stored in the new electronic system resided in the State’s environmentally controlled vault which had records dating back to as early as 1897. These documents were typically located in bound books on shelves with a wide range of quality and print legibility. Many were hand written and very fragile. The paper records were cumbersome and costly to handle and store. In addition, the State wanted to become compliant with new legislation pertaining to the REAL ID ACT, STEVE and EVVE reporting standards. Converting the paper records into digital images and extracting specific indexing fields would allow the Ohio Department of Vital Statistics to meet the requirements and have a more efficient department.

Solution

In May, of 2007, FNTI was selected for the conversion of all paper vital records consisting in excess of 46,000,000 pages. FNTI was tasked to design an imaging solution that would allow the 26,000,000 certificates to be imaged on site using 10 Kodak i640 scanners in the vault. Index data for searching was also entered at a separate State facility that consisted of trained operators working 2 shifts on 45 workstations. It was important that the entire production process complied with strict security and quality requirements by the State. FNTI designed and deployed its comprehensive backfile conversion platform for capture and data extraction to meet or exceed a 99.5% accuracy level requirement.

Results

The State of Ohio now has all of the death and birth paper records with all of the required data elements in a searchable electronic format. The State and National reporting compliance mandates can now be met and maintained. The process of imaging the records also created a disaster recovery solution in the event of a catastrophe. Significant savings has also been realized pertaining to reduced people time, direct administrative costs, storage and risk avoidance.

Judy Nagy, State Registrar said that "We have completed the project on time, under budget, and with higher accuracy requirements than we expected". States contemplating similar projects should look to the State of Ohio as a model for future successful back file conversion projects pertaining to compliance oriented documents such as Vital Records.