11.3.11 Louisiana’s Vital Records office within the Department of Health and Hospitals is announcing a new electronic death registration (EDR) system for spring 2012.

The Louisiana Electronic Event Registration System (LEERS) is currently being used to electronically register and issue all birth records statewide, as well as collect statistical information for marriage, divorce, and induced termination of pregnancy records as required by the state statutes and in compliance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements.

 

For physicians, EDR will mean that death certificates will no longer need to be completed by hand. Also, by entering the required medical information on a certificate electronically, most common errors that currently require a certificate to be returned and re-signed will be eliminated.

 

Electronic death registration will also provide a benefit to public health. By standardizing immediate and underlying cause of death information, better health information can be gained from death certificates much more quickly than is currently possible.

 

In order to certify a death certificate through LEERS, the physician will need to be a registered LEERS user. In order to register, physicians must complete a user agreement. Upon receiving the signed agreement, Vital Records will email the physician a user ID, a password to log into the system, and a 4-digit personal identification number (PIN) that will be used to digitally “sign” the record.

 

Vital Records, within Louisiana Office of Public Health and Department of Health and Hospitals, remains committed to assisting physicians with training materials and live support leading up to the launch of EDR and beyond. Physicians will continue to receive information regarding LEERS death registration in the coming months.