The Central Birth and Death Registry

The Central Birth and Death Registry (CBDR) system envisioned building a nation-wide central birth and death registry so that all the birth and death happening within or reported to healthcare facilities (MOH, non-MOH government and private) would get recorded into a single registry. The system was built using the open standard and architectures so that disparate EMR systems running at care facilities will be able to connect to the system in a platform independent way and deliver standard messages related to birth and death events happening within the care facility. The system is also integrated to the ROP National Civil Registration system, which means the records delivered to the MOH registry are also routed to ROP NRS registry online. The 2-way link established between ROP and MOH helps to automate uploading of the birth notification to NRS and the health institutions to receive the National ID of the registered newborns when the birth certificate is issued at the NRS at a later stage. The CBDR project is an integral component of the Oman National EHR project as the newly registered birth records will be attributed with the national ID which then will be integrated to the unique EHR record of the newborn baby. The source EMR system will also get updated with the newly assigned national ID for the newborn baby. In case of the death registration the record will be updated in the EHR registry to trigger the status change of the patient record to all participating EMR systems.

This system has the following features:

All the birth and death happening within MOH, non-MOH government and private health care facilities will be reported in the system online.
Necessary web interfaces to record, search, list and modify the records based on the user access.
Web services interface that the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems can invoke to deliver the birth and death messages, query, list , and update the existing records.
Advanced Query-by-Example (QBE) search options to list and collect statistics based on the conditions given.
Birth/death record reaches the repository would be automatically routed to ROP NRS with data validations.
MOH Administrators can review and approve the birth and death records and view the related comments. Any feedback to the comments will either be sent back to the source EMR systems through a web service call or queried by the source system by invoking a service client.
Application interface for hospital users to view the comments and reply to them. Subsequently, users can modify the original records and fulfill the review instructions.
The system is integrated with the Oman NEHR project to update newly registered records once birth certificate is issued from NRS.
Web service interface to Oman NEHR to update the system with the death status of patients in the event.
Interface to MOH email and SMS systems to send notification messages to relevant stakeholders.
Basic statistical and indicator reports and alerts to analyze birth and death data and status of the records.

this system has many benefits such as:

A very significant G2G integration project that automates an important citizen service. Better quality, improved productivity that in turn liberates capacity and enable greater access.
The system builds a central repository of death and birth which provides accurate information regarding the births and deaths happening at or reported health institutions in Oman.
The repository system is extended to all health institutions spanning the boundaries of different care providers including Ministry of Health, Non-MOH government and private facilities.
It eliminates the delay in the reporting and collecting data regarding death and birth events. It also eliminates expensive repeated data entry which is prone to errors and discrepancies.
Data can be analyzed and converted into meaningful statistics and KPIs needed for decision making and improving healthcare services. This repository can be extended or act as a source data repository to feed a data warehouse and business intelligence systems to further analyze the data for any kind of research purposes.
Open web service interface standards supports the integration with heterogeneous EMR systems so that data can be collected from the internal hospital systems without any additional data entry efforts. The communication can be from both sides as the results of the further processing of this data can be sent back to source systems.
The integration with the ROP NRS helps to get the national ID for newborns so that source EMR systems can have this important piece of information for the proposed eHealth project.
The national EHR system will be utilized through the CBDR. After the event of death, the national EHR and participating EMR systems where the patient health records exist will be immediately updated.
The administrators at Ministry of Health are important beneficiaries. Previously, death and birth events were delivered and recorded through manual means. There were no means to communicate back with the hospitals related to possible date entry errors like “cause of death” etc. The CBDR system eliminates this barrier through an online web service communication channel with the EMR systems as well as separate web page interfaces.
Patients are benefitted as the notification to ROP civil status is available online and patients need not to wait for a printed notification issued at healthcare facilities at a later date events to be submitted to ROP for getting the birth and death certificates. This ensures increased response times and convenience.
ROP is benefitted with the system as the birth and death data are delivered electronically, with automatic validations of the data in place so that re-entry to the civil status system is eliminated.