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Birth, marriage and death certificates go electronic.

Although relatively unknown to most Texas citizens, thereÕs a new law quietly producing very important benefits that are good for both Texas and Texas families. State legislators passed a law (Health & Safety Code 193.005), which became effective in 2008, that requires all birth, marriage and death certificates to be filed electronically. This law touches all Texans during what are arguably the three most significant and profound milestones of our lives: birth, marriage and death.

The Vital Statistics division of the Texas Department of State Health Services is responsible for the collection and maintenance of citizen information specific to all births, marriages and deaths in the state of Texas. Imagine that, since all birth, marriage and death information has been collected and maintained through a manual process since the early 1900s. With the availability and broad adoption of technology throughout the state and this new legislative mandate, what used to be a paper-based process has been replaced by an electronic registry called the Texas Electronic Registrar, or TER. This information is not only extremely important for our state and citizens, but is also important on a national level. To give you some perspective on the volume of data managed by the Vital Statistics division, here are the numbers for the 2007 calendar year:

Deaths: 162,814          Births: 414,151          Marriages: 176,305

Good for Families
While the new law mandates electronic registration for all births, deaths and marriages, the requirement for funeral homes and medical certifiers carries the most broad and varied ramifications. Each death certificate must be submitted electronically by the medical certifier. This process is now the official attestation to validity of the fact of death when submitted using the electronic process approved by State Registrar Geraldine Harris.

So what does this mean for your average Texas citizen? A death certificate is a permanent legal record of an individualÕs death. The law requires that an official death certificate be filed with the state within 10 days. After this date, the medical certifier is no longer in compliance with the new state law; but more importantly, being late immediately has an impact on the surviving members of the family. If you are fortunate enough to not have experienced a death in your immediate family, consider these very real issues in the context of a surviving spouse, parent or child.

The information recorded on the death certificate is used for:

Good for Texas and the Nation Now letÕs talk about the greater good. The information on a death certificate also provides important mortality data used in a variety of medical- and health-related research efforts.

Mortality data is one of the most accessible and frequently used statistics. It is an especially valuable and powerful source of information because it is collected for all deaths in the United States. It is derived from the words the physician writes in the cause-of-death section. This data indicates the overall health of a community, drives health policy decisions and determines funding for health interventions. The Health Department and other government agencies, researchers and community-based organizations use this data to identify needs, measure results and allocate resources.

Mortality statistics help:

If you are a physician or funeral director, your role in all of this is critical to the future of Texas and our families. To learn more about TER or to get registered as a physician, medical examiner, funeral director, justice of the peace or local registrar, go to www.texasvsu.org. You may register for TER by going to the Vital Statistics Unit Web site at www.texasvsu.org and filling out an application. The application can be sent electronically or downloaded and faxed into the Texas Department of State Health Services Ð Vital Statistics Unit office. Once the application has been received, you will receive an e-mail with your user ID, password and PIN number (if applicable).