West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources image.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Health Officer Dr. Ayne Amjad says work to fully transition the state’s new Electronic Death Registration System has gone smoothly.
“We’ve had some good feedback so far,” Amjad told MetroNews.
The new system, the West Virginia Database Application for Vital Events (WV DAVE), allows providers in the Mountain State to do away with paper death certificates and file the deaths electronically instead.
Amjad said the change was implemented earlier this year as a way to increase efficiency.
“It’s just done quicker rather than mail courier which takes 2-3 days depending on how long the paper system takes place,” she said.
The previous process for registering a West Virginia death certificate involved information to be completed on paper and filed through U.S. Mail between funeral homes, medical certifiers, or medical examiners and the Health Statistics Center for registering records.
Amjad said the electronic process shortens the time it takes to complete a record and transfer it; however, it doesn’t mean that deaths will be registered immediately.
Filing electronically also reduces errors, Amjad said.
“We used to short hand everything. The funeral homes would bring back the death certificates and find you in the office or the hospital and you’d have to spell it out. That takes care of that accuracy process,” she said.
Amjad said the process has been beneficial during to COVID-19 pandemic when the state is seeing more deaths.
“We’ve seen 2,000 more deaths compared to last year due to COVID-19, so this has definitely helped that process,” she said.
Under state code, a death certificate must be medically certified by a physician.
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