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Ohio Birth Defects Tracking Program

Project Summary

Ohio Connections for Children with Special Needs (OCCSN) is a birth defects surveillance program committed to ensuring that children with birth defects are linked to medical and other health services. OCCSN receives data about children with special needs through a passive, electronic reporting system. Those data are then merged with vital statistics information. From January 2006 through January 2007, about 16,000 children were been reported to the system.

Through this project, OCCSN will expand its four-county pilot surveillance effort to a statewide reporting system. Additionally, the OCCSN will develop a data system to automatically cross-check Ohio’s Part C Early Intervention Program and the Bureau for Children with Medical Handicaps (BCMH) to see if a reported child is already receiving services from either of those programs.

Surveillance

• Collect birth defects data from 16 of the 18 hospitals in a four-county pilot project.
• Train participating hospitals to report data electronically via a secure transmission.
• Provide feedback to hospital reporters and report these efforts to the Advisory Council.
• Evaluate the pilot data collection system to identify any changes needed for expansion.
• Prepare to expand data collection to a statewide system.
• Develop manual data entry screens to assist Ohio Department of Health (ODH) staff in data management.

• Promote birth defects prevention messages statewide.
• Convene the Ohio Partners for Birth Defects Prevention group quarterly.
• Distribute the birth defects handbook and provide related training to OB and family planning staff and to other health care providers who interact with women of childbearing age. This comprehensive handbook from the Ohio Partners for Birth Defects Prevention discusses birth defects that might be affected by genetics, lifestyle, the environment, and maternal health.
• Participate in ODH’s Preconception Initiative workgroups.
• Develop an OCCSN information page on the ODH website.
  

• Ensure that parents and guardians of children reported to the system know about the BCMH and Part C Early Intervention programs.
• Test referral protocols once the OCCSN data system can run the check of children reported who are not known to these programs.
• Monitor the status and outcomes of referrals made and services received by all children with birth defects in the early intervention system.
• Provide regional training on reportable birth defects for local public health nurses and early intervention staff.
  

Date: March 11, 2009
Content source: National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities