National Vital Statistics System Modernization Community of Practice
The National Vital Statistics System Modernization Community of Practice is a virtual forum for sharing ideas, technical tools, resources, and promising practices to improve birth and death data. We welcome all jurisdictions and partners interested in modernizing the vital records system, at any level of experience.
Together, we’re exploring innovative solutions and standards, such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), that make data more available for action. Our intent is to create efficiencies in the reuse of tools and provide opportunities for peer-to-peer learning that will accelerate modernization efforts.
Convened by the National Center for Health Statistics, this diverse and growing community is designed to bring together:
- State vital records offices
- Medical examiners and coroners (ME/C)
- Hospitals and health care organizations
- IT vendors and informatics consultants working with Electronic Health Records, Electronic Death Registration Systems, ME/C Case Management Systems, and Electronic Birth Registration Systems
- State and national organizations of ME/Cs and vital records
- Those working with public health surveillance systems that interoperate with vital records (e.g. cancer registries, etc.)
Grounded in experience and based on strategies that have already proven successful, the community’s guiding principles center on six main building blocks for modernization:
No matter where you are in the modernization process, the community offers valuable resources, such as:
- Trainings by level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and by topic/theme
- Peer-to-peer learning:
- Monthly theme-based discussions with other jurisdictions working in the same space
- Access to Sharepoint repository of meeting minutes, recordings, and documents
- Presentations by technical experts on topics including innovation, emerging trends in FHIR-based interoperability, and more.
- Targeted communication:
- Contribute to the NVSS newsletter and receive announcements from our listserv
- Use NVSS email to reach other jurisdictions and interoperability partners
- Focused subgroups for discussion of specific topics of interest
- Opportunities for virtual testing of FHIR-based interoperability across the mortality and natality workflows
We’re building on the same ideas that have worked well for the Implementers’ Community to modernize death data.
This National Vital Statistics System Modernization Community of Practice does not replace the Implementers’ Community and other workgroups, but is an overarching body that remains open to any jurisdiction or partner working in the space of vital records modernization.
