Executive Director Report - Shawna Webster
It’s my pleasure to announce the release of the 2019 Annual Report. This report details the many accomplishments of the Association last year, including highlights from our second Identity and Security Conference and the two Systems and Interoperability Workshops. Take an look! And since we won’t be printing them this year, please share the link far and wide.
Congratulations to Past President Lou Saadi (KS) on her retirement and nearly a decade of service on the NAPHSIS Board of Directors. Lou has been a fixture of the Board since I began at NAPHSIS in 2012. Her enthusiastic leadership and wise counsel has been invaluable to the organization and to me, personally, as I learned about vital records and the Association. I can’t thank her enough for her contributions and all of us at NAPHSIS wish her the best retirement ever!
Also completing their terms of service on the Board are Member at Large Kirk Bol (CO) and Treasurer Jeff Duncan (MI). Kirk’s deep knowledge of the statistics side of the house was invaluable to the board, but it’s his quiet demeanor and dry humor that I will miss the most! Jeff has been on our Board since 2015 and he’s been an outstanding Treasurer and Chair of our Finance Committee. Jeff’s expertise in systems and electronic health records made him an indispensable member of the board through the STEVE rebuild and implementation. Both will be missed. Thank you for your service, gentlemen!
And thus, we welcome our NEW Board Members to the fold: Alex Quintana (CO) and Chris Harrison (GA). The new board starts work on June 1, per the bylaws. To learn more about your new Board Members click here.
Like Molly, I will greatly miss seeing all of you in person at the Annual Meeting this year. It is our plan to reschedule our Omaha meeting for June of 2022. In the meantime, we will be bringing you as much content as possible via webinars this summer. We know our members are busier and low on bandwidth, so we’ll do our best to record each session so that you can access it at your leisure. We won’t get to see you in person, but we’ll look forward to bringing you some stellar content this summer.
Message from the President - Molly Crawford
Ordinarily I would be looking forward to seeing many of you at the NAPHSIS Annual Meeting. To keep us all safe and focused on essential work, NAPHSIS cancelled the meeting. Like so many things right now, it’s a loss. I am sad that we won’t be together to learn, share, celebrate good work, and connect. Most of us are experiencing work in new ways with staff working remotely and offices closed to the public. Even with the best technology, I think most of us have realized that there is no substitute for being with others in the same space at the same time. The NAPHSIS Annual Meeting bring us together in a way that virtual meetings, phone calls, and emails never will.
With the cancellation, we won’t have the opportunity to recognize innovative solutions and individuals who have achieved much. If we were in Omaha, I would have taken the opportunity to present the NAPHSIS President’s Award. Instead, I will use this month’s newsletter to recognize someone who is very special to me, NAPHSIS, and our members and partners.
I honor the life work of Dr. Lou Saadi and present her the NAPHSIS President’s Award. Lou has spent most of her career, more than 30 years, serving the vital records and health statistics community. She’s been a voice from the Kansas prairie bringing energy, ideas, and inspiration to our work. Lou is a leader who is driven and passionate. She’s a natural initiator and innovator who has served as the State Registrar of Kansas and the President of NAPHSIS. She’s mentored many and helped our organization grow. Lou has a gift to bridge people and ideas, to bring consensus and connect the dots. Lou has pushed us to try new things, to use technology, to consider the impossible. Lou has helped NAPHSIS and all of us be the best we can be. And now Lou has decided it’s time to direct her attention, talent, and time to other things. She is retiring from her post in public health and will now focus on the things that matter most—spending time with the people she loves and putting her energy into the next generation of Saudi’s who will grow up all too fast. Thank you Lou for your leadership and contributions over the years. I bestow upon you the NAPHSIS President’s Award. Congratulations on your retirement and best wishes always.
Upcoming Webinars and Events
Monday, June 1 @ 3pm ET
EVVE User Group Call
Email us to be added to the call.
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Wednesday, June 3 @ 3pm ET
FEMA Reconstitution Webinar
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Wednesday, June 10 @ 2pm ET
VSCP Project Directors Call
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Wednesday, July 15 @ 3pm ET
Fetal Death Webinar Series:
Data Quality Issues for Fetal Death
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Tuesday, August 11 @ 2pm ET
EVVE and EVVE Fact-Of-Death Webinar
Nov 30 – Dec 2
NAPHSIS Identity & Security Conference
Washington, DC
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For any questions about NAPHSIS Events, please email Katey Frederking.
Economic Development Administration (EDA) Funding Opportunity
The EDA is in the process of allocating $1.5 billion for economic development assistance programs to help communities prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19. County governments, special district governments, city or township governments, federally recognized Native American tribal governments and state governments are all eligible to apply. To learn more about this funding opportunity, please click here.
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FEMA Reconstitution Webinar
FEMA will be hosting a webinar for our membership to learn about best practices for the reconstitution of operations that enable organizations to return to normal, or new normal, after an incident.
FEMA National Continuity Programs can help your jurisdiction make informed decisions on how to plan for and return to operations once it is safe to do so. This info- sharing event will include what factors to consider and provide ideas on how to accomplish bringing resources back to the workplace while preserving the integrity of your essential functions.
Guest speaker Denise Chrosniak, a FEMA continuity training specialist, will provide guidance and best practices as it relates to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Date and Time: Wednesday, June 3, 2020 @ 3:00 pm Eastern
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Other COVID-19 Resources
NAPHSIS added a COVID-19 response site on the public facing website, and a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Group in the Members Only site.
ASTHO recently updated their COVID-19 Q&A Document. The update includes revisions to all 45 original questions and the addition of more than 15 new questions related to mitigation and long-term response, funerals and post-mortem concerns, contact tracing, medical interventions, and more. Click here to read.
The DHS Science and Technology Directorate released a predictive modeling tool estimating the decay of the COVID-19 virus under a range of indoor humidity levels and temperatures. Click here to read.
ASTHO also released communication guidance on how to write newsworthy quotes. Click here to read more.
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VRHS Accreditation Applicant Training
Due to the cancelation of the 2020 NAPHSIS Annual Meeting, NAPHSIS and the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) have rescheduled the Vital Records Health Statistics (VRHS) Accreditation applicant training session to occur virtually on July 8, 2020.
The training will consist of two 90-minute online sessions with a 30-minute break – total workshop time will be 3½ hours. A syllabus with detailed information about the training will be made available in early June. Attendance is limited to those who plan to apply for VRHS Accreditation between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021.
For more information on the rescheduled training, including a registration link, please click here. Deadline to register is July 1, 2020.
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NCHS has released a Request For Task Order Proposal (RFTOP)
NCHS has released a Request For Task Order Proposal (RFTOP) titled Improve Timeliness of Death Data Reporting for Enhanced Mortality Surveillance of COVID-19 Deaths. Responses are due June 25, 2020 by 3 pm Eastern. Use this link for the detailed announcement. STEVE & EVVE Updates
California Joins EVVE Fact of Death We have exciting news regarding EVVE FOD participation. California is the latest jurisdiction to join EVVE Fact of Death. The system now contains 75% of all death records in the nation, up from 65%. Our users are excited that their queries are now more effective and return more results. Now, more than ever, our users need access to the timely, accurate, and comprehensive data that the system provides. We thank the 44 currently participating jurisdictions for their efforts, and hope to have many more join soon. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ EVVE Data Center Migration Because EVVE will be hosted at new locations by the end of June, it will be necessary for jurisdictions to adjust your firewalls. There will be new network addresses with which your jurisdiction’s EVVE SI will communicate with the EVVE Hub. It is imperative that you make these changes soon to ensure no interruption in processing EVVE transactions. Thank you to those jurisdictions who have already tested and confirmed, there is no further action needed from you at this time. We will have final testing/confirmation instructions in the coming weeks. For more information on this migration, including instructions on making the changes, please click this link. Please contact us with any questions or concerns: evve-help-desk@naphsis.org ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Choctaw Nation EVVE Access Thank you to all the jurisdictions that have given access to our EVVE and EVVE FOD customer the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. There is still time to go ahead and give access if you have not done so. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma which is a federally recognized Indian tribe is requesting access to Birth Certification and Birth Verification in EVVE, and to EVVE FOD queries as well. If you anticipate giving them access and need additional time to review, please let us know. If you do not plan on giving them access, we would also like to hear from you. For any questions, please reach out to evve-help-desk@naphsis.org. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ EVVE & STEVE User Groups Sign up to participate in our new monthly EVVE User Group. This monthly hour meeting provides jurisdictional service and support with any EVVE or EVVE FOD issues, questions or concerns. We also have our STEVE user group meeting monthly for STEVE support, discussion and learning. Contact us at HQ@naphsis.org to sign up for one or both groups today.