Re-engineeredNational Vital Statistics

System(reNVSS)Rajesh Virkar

DVS/NCHSJune 8, 2010

Background

National Vital Statistics System is a collection of many separate systems on different platforms (e.g. Mainframe, Unix Servers, PC/Servers)Two different certificates being used (1989 Revision and 2003 Revision)Three different years are “open” at the same time (e.g. 2008, 2009 and 2010)Need to get off the mainframe

Scope

Develop a system that collects, processes, aggregates and analyzes birth, death and fetal death data for all 57 reporting jurisdictionsGenerate reports from processing birth, death-demo, fetal death data and infant death dataMake data available to other analytical tools

Goals

Increase the capability and responsiveness in providing data to subject matter branchesReduce the time needed for sending reports back to the jurisdictionsReduce the time needed for supplied data to become available for publication

Objectives

Single seamless user environment (look-and-feel, design, etc.)Feedback on data to jurisdictionsMove as many rules to the front-end of processing as possibleMerge death-demo and death-med data as soon as data is availableProcess linked file for missing linkages and death data cross-edits on a regular basis

reNVSS file naming

No change from the published convention, yet!– File names to follow SSYRXXXT.DAT

• SS: the transmitting jurisdiction• YR: the last two digits of the data year• XXX: the numeric shipment number• T: the revision status• DAT: the certificate type (NAT, MOR, FET)

reNVSS Status

Revised and non-revised natality in productionRevised mortality-demographic is in testNon-revised mortality-demographic is nextFollowed by revised and non-revised fetal deaths, and integration with death-medical processing

reNVSS Errors

Validation errors– Simple validation errors– Compound validation errors

Verification errors– Simple verification errors– Compound verification errors

reNVSS validation errors

Some jurisdictions are seeing a high number of errorsCauses– Our old system was inadequate and did not

catch some of the errors– Follow the edit specs published on the web– Some business rules are tweaked

Review of validation errors

Ranked all states by their 2009 natality validation error rates17 states had error rates of 3% or higherFocused on 14 that were revisedExamined the errors that contributed to their high number of validation errors

Validation errors – a quick review

Total validation errors – 4,049,259– Edit flag errors – 3,214,535– Risk factor-related errors – 465,249– Errors related to data conversion – 144,016

– > 94% of the errors are system related

reNVSS errors update

Over the last two weeks, two jurisdictions have sent in single updates to their data– State A reduced their validation error count

from over 1,607,561 to 429– State B reduced their validation error count

from 472,419 to 29

– More than half of the total validation errors have gone away!

Other comments on reNVSS

“Seeing some errors again…”– Error suppression

“Error reports in MS Excel format”– The capability is there, but we need to spend

some extra time to make the reports more usable in Excel

“… large women giving birth…”– We will review this and other errors that

appear ‘new’

reNVSS – STEVE connectivity

New requirement for all states to begin using STEVE to send data by 2013Working with the STEVE team / IJE Committee to define the gapsOnce requirements are agreed upon, design and develop solutions on both sidesIJE committee to determine impact on state systemsDump Stanley, go to STEVE!

Conclusions

We all want better data – Only validation errors are presented here (there may be other quality problems with the data!)Improvements in quality are neededWe will work with the statesWe will share the business rules document in the near future

Thanks!

For questions, please contact your assigned:– Vital Statistics Specialist or Statistician in DAEB

– Rajesh Virkar, RVirkar@cdc.gov , 919-541-2180