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Welcome!
Welcome to the monthly newsletter for the Center for Health Statistics (CHS), Vital Records office. You will find that it is filled with information that is important for you and your facility like OVERS changes, updates to Oregon laws, statistics, available reports, and process reminders. In the table of contents on the left, click on any category of news to jump to articles of interest.
We would love to hear from you regarding future newsletter topics.
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Modern Look for OVERS
Sometime in early 2021 the display screens in OVERS will be updated with a new and modern look. All the functionality will remain the same, but now you will see new icons and spacing that makes the screens easier to read.
New icons have been added along the menu bar on the home page. The home page is specific to each user so not all icons will display for all users.
The menu bar has more space between options.
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New Icons for the Calendar, Search, and Edit.
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For Facility Admins there is one change in the top menu bar. The Table Maintenance selection will change to Administration.
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OVERS also has a High Contrast option that makes the fields stand out. To turn on this feature click on Help and then select High Contrast. |
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An example of a screen with the High Contrast option selected.
The same screen without High Contrast selected.
 If you have any questions about the new look in OVERS call the Help Desk Technical Support at (971) 673-0279.
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Custom Birth Worksheets
The Center for Health Statistics provides both the Parent and Facility Birth Worksheets. These worksheets can be found on the CHS website here.
If a facility would like to use a custom Parent or Facility Worksheet they may, only if preapproved by the State Registrar. Worksheets must meet certain requirements:
- All questions must be kept verbatim from the state worksheet.
- To conform to national standards, all duplicated items between the parent and facility versions must be retained. If different answers are given to the same question, use the Facility Worksheet’s information.
- Worksheets may be designed for letter or legal size paper. A worksheet approved to print on legal paper must not be shrunk down to print on letter paper.
- General font size must be 9pt Arial or larger. Other fonts are allowed, but they must be at least the same visual size. Special item instructions may be made smaller to fit. (See example below.)
 Worksheets should be retained for two years and should not be part of the medical record. No copies of the worksheet should ever be made or distributed, including as an informal receipt of request for SSN. Request for SSN section must be on a separate page.
To have your custom worksheet approved, send to the state registrar:
Jennifer Woodward
Center for Health Statistics
800 NE Oregon Street, Suite 225
Portland, OR 97232
If you have any questions please call Megan Welter at (971) 671-1151 or by email at megan.l.welter@dhsoha.state.or.us.
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Who is the informant?
The informant supplies the decedent’s personal information to complete a death record. Usually the informant is the next of kin, but could be a nurse, police officer, medical examiner, etc. Correctly identifying the informant is vital to the integrity of a death record.
Death records require the informant’s full name, relationship to the decedent, and mailing address. The informant must be accessible if the information on a death record is disputed and in some cases is needed to authorize amendments. For example, the informant must approve of certain amendments to the marital status or the spouse’s name. Not having a clear informant makes amending the record or identifying where the information came from difficult.
In cases where there are no family, friends or associates to collect the information from, the person who contacted you to inform you of the death would be the informant.
The following are common informant errors:
- Labeling the funeral director as the informant
- The informant’s name is “None”, “Unknown”, or a job title such as “Nurse”
- The informant’s mailing address is incomplete, undeliverable, or “Unknown”
Consider the following example:
Officer Smith conducts a welfare check on John Doe. She discovers the deceased, and immediately contacts the medical examiner and Jane, the next of kin. Jane’s husband, Jeff, calls the funeral director to transport the remains and provides the decedent’s personal information for the death record.
Who is the informant? While there are many people and roles in this example, Jeff is the informant because he was the source of the decedent’s personal information to complete the death certificate.
If you have any questions, please email the Amendments Unit at CHS.Amendments@dhsoha.state.or.us.
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Renewal for Registrar and Deputy Registrars
Renewal Forms for Registrar and Deputy Registrar commissions are being processed. Remember that all Registrar and Deputy Registrar Vital Records commissions will expire December 31, 2020. If you have not submitted your completed and signed commission forms to us, please do so ASAP.
2021 Commission Renewal forms can be found at the Center for Health Statistics website. Each Registrar and Deputy must complete and hand sign the form. We need a separate form for each Registrar and Deputy Registrar. The County Registrar must approve each Deputy in their county.
Completed forms may be faxed to (971) 671-1202, scanned and sent as an email attachment to Dani Hall at dancia.o.hall@dhsoha.state.or.us or mailed to:
Center for Health Statistics
Attention: Dani Hall
PO Box 14050
Portland, OR 97293-0050
Registrars and Deputies who have not sent in their forms will no longer be authorized to register records or issue certified copies of certificates after January 1, 2021 and access to OVERS will be terminated.
New commission certificates with a copy of the approved form will be sent to your office by December 31, 2020.
Guidelines for Working from Home
In April, we sent a letter to County Vital Records offices indicating that all Vital Records services provided by the county needed to occur in the office and could not be conducted remotely at home. Our work in vital records throughout the state has changed a lot since then. All of us have been asked by our leaders to minimize the number of staff in the office and to try to work remotely.
Vital Records offices throughout the state have staff working on alternating schedules or are limiting public access by closing lobbies or offering services by appointment only in order to limit foot traffic. Some have staff working remotely.
Here are some procedures for working remotely that ensure the protection and security of vital records.
- Telework or remote work agreements need to be in place for each employee who works remotely. The agreement should outline security and confidentiality policies, list equipment being used and who owns it, and how the remote work site is set up to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.
- Staff working remotely need to have:
- secure Internet access,
- a computer that is not shared with other family members, and
- a work area that is separate from other family members so they can’t see work or overhear conversations.
- Phones can be forwarded so that calls can be answered remotely. Voicemail can be checked and emails answered remotely.
- Order forms, applicant ID and all accompanying documentation associated with the order can be scanned at the office and saved as PDF files into a secure shared drive. These orders can be keyed into OVERS as long as the remote work site has a secured virtual private network (VPN) and secured remote access. Scanned orders should not be emailed since email is not secure.
What cannot be done remotely?
- Paper order forms, death records or intaglio paper cannot be taken to the remote work area.
- Paper death records cannot be registered at remote work area.
- Certificates cannot be issued at the remote work area.
- Certificates cannot be mailed from the remote work area.
Live Birth Verification for Home Births Without a Licensed Attendant
Mothers may visit your offices with their babies and ask you to complete a Vital Record Office Verification of Live Birth Form.
Appearing in person with a baby is one way to fulfill a requirement for home births when a licensed attendant was not present. The rule requires that mothers with children under one year of age must include evidence that a live birth resulted from their pregnancy. One option for proof of live birth is to present their child to a County Vital Records Office. The clerk who “views” the child completes the Vital Record Office Verification of Live Birth Form, copies the mother’s photo ID and then faxes these items to the State Vital Records Office. These instructions are included on the form. Please make sure that this form is not given back to the mother. The form must be faxed to Vital Records by your office. Any forms received by the mother will not be considered valid, and the Amendments Unit will not be able to accept them. Please send an email request to sheryl.wallace@dhsoha.state.or.us for an electronic version of this form.
To see all the requirements for home births, see OAR 333-011-0220 Registering Live Births that Occur Outside of a Facility and Without a Licensed Attendant Within One Year of the Date of Birth.
Counties Sending CHS Security Paper Numbers to Void
Beginning January 4th, 2021, there will be a new template for counties to use when sending security paper numbers to void to CHS. We are asking counties to use a formatted excel sheet to track their voids and email it as an attachment to CHS.Vitalrecords@dhsoha.state.or.us.
- Please send a new list of voids on the 1st and 15th day of every month using this formatted excel sheet. If you do not have any security paper to be voided within this time frame, no email to CHS is necessary.
- Please do not send an intaglio paper number to be voided more than once.
- Entering the leading zeroes of the security paper number in the tracking sheet is optional.
The new template will be emailed out to all county partners who have an active OVERS account in the last week of December. Thank you for your understanding as we work to streamline receipt of voids.
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Kelly Stacey is Retiring
The Center for Health Statistics is announcing the retirement of Kelly Stacey, Vital Records Training Team Assistant. You may know Kelly as the primary contact with Counties while she worked with the Certification team and most recently in the Partner Services Training and Communication team. Kelly has been with the State for 10 years holding various roles. Although we are sad to see her leave, we are very grateful for all her hard work, her contributions and dedication to CHS, the Counties and the many Oregonians that she has assisted. We wish her the best of luck!
1. What was your first role with the state?
I started as a temp worker in the Certification Unit in April 2010, reviewing mailed in orders and issuing certified records. I was fortunate to be hired in the Certification Unit about 5 months after starting. In my 9+ years in Certification, I went from an Office Specialist 1 to Office Specialist 2 to Admin Specialist 1 and a 6-month stint as the Certification Manager
2. What has been the most memorable change you’ve seen in CHS over the years?
There are actually two changes: First, the gradual change in CHS from a DOS-based platform for issuing records to the very modern, Windows-based OVERS. The upgrades over the years have made OVERS a very user-friendly, one-stop shop for nearly everything CHS needs to run like a well-oiled machine. Second, the change in myself. I started as a very nervous, clueless temp. Thanks to the training I’ve received from patient co-workers, encouragement from my managers and skills I’ve acquired, I think of myself as a confident, go-to person for many of the laws and rules related to issuing Vital Records. That confidence has carried over into my personal life, which has been fantastic!
3. What part of your job have you liked the most?
The people! Not just my co-workers (although they are the best!), but the customers with questions about ordering their records and all the County and State staff I’ve gotten to know through regular contact over the years. I’m sure I’ve spoken with literally hundreds, if not thousands of Oregonians the last 10 years, and knowing that I’ve helped so many of them to understand what was needed and achieve what they wanted gives me a great deal of satisfaction. In so many instances, I have felt a real connection between the customer and myself by taking the time to listen, then offering possible solutions. When a customer would follow up with a card or email thanking me for helping them, well, that was the best!
4. What does retirement look like for you?
Moving to the central Washington coast in February, being able to spend more time designing and creating beaded jewelry and, hopefully, lots and lots of traveling!
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Introduction for Robyn Hjermstad
We are happy to announce that Robyn Hjermstad has joined CHS as our new Registration Office Specialist II.
She is originally from Nebraska and has a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute, and a B.A in Art History and English from the University of Minnesota. She spent about a decade working in archives in NYC, primarily in cultural heritage and performing arts.
Last year, she moved to Portland for a change of pace and loves it! In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, reading, painting, eating her husband’s cooking, and hanging out with her cat, Miso. She is excited to bring her skills and experience to the Center for Health Statistics and feels grateful for the opportunity to join the team!
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Welcome Ron Sarayudej to the OVERS Team!
Ron is the newest member of the OVERS team, where he will be on the Help Desk, enrolling new users into OVERS, assisting with case/record creation and OVERS improvement.
Ron was born in Southern California, went to high school in Bangkok, returned to California to attend college at Cal State Long Beach and lived for four years in Dalian, a city in northeastern China, before settling down in Portland in May of 2019 with his wife. Ron is continuing his studies at Portland State University and is hoping to receive his bachelor’s degree by 2022.
Ron’s background is varied; marketing manager at a mobile game company in China, software engineer and consultant in California. He was even a photographer at Disneyland!
Ron has played the guitar for about 25 years – rock, pop, jazz and classical styles. He enjoys reading and writing, and pondering the meanings of life, how we each define reality and find happiness within ourselves and with those around us.
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VitalChek Orders Hotline:
888-896-4988
VitalChek Order online: www.vitalchek.com
General Information: 971-673-1190
FAX: 971-673-1201
TTY: 711
For technical support, contact:
OVERS Help Desk: 971-673-0279
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