Kentucky death certificate filing to go paperless

Thursday, November 6, 2014

In Kentucky, the bureaucratic process that comes with one's passing will be expedited this January. 

Content management services such as the e-filing program the state will implement at the start of 2015 are a business process automation strategy sure to increase efficiency. Funeral homes, coroners and doctors will all benefit from the switch, according to Murray State University's NPR station, WKMS. Right now Paul Royce, who heads Vital Statistics in state government, said participation in the system is currently about 60 percent. He added that the e-filing system will be ready to take on the extra work by 2015. 

"We did a lot of stress testing on the system," Royce told the public radio station. "Basically tried to overflow it, tried to break it, tried to put as much pressure as we could possible dream ever being on the system and so far we have not run into any issues with volume."

Going paperless can save costs, and stretch what each dollar spent throughout the day can achieve. The Small Business Association noted that reducing paper usage can save space around offices by mitigating the need for storage units. When you don't have old documents to keep around, you don't have to inefficiently use office space to store them. 

Additionally, employees can spend time on valuable tasks, instead of wasting manpower on maintaining documents that could be more efficiently kept and transferred within content management services. Ultimately, getting rid of old files saves money in a number of ways. Kentucky officials are likely to see their money invested better once the whole system goes electronic as well.

The SBA explained that going paperless will also improve operability. When money and manpower are spent on more important things than maintaining and creating documents, operations often run much more efficiently. 

Not just the Office of Vital Statistics going paperless in Kentucky
Recently a different branch of the Kentucky state government also decided to dabble in going paperless, the Western Kentucky University public radio service explained. The state will implement a paperless constituent messaging system come 2015. 

"I had heard from various staff and legislators, and in viewing the process, seen that we needed to modernize and make this mode of communication between citizens and legislators more modern, more efficient," Marcia Seiler, acting director of the Legislative Research Commission, explained to the public radio station.

Royce noted that the new system will make an especially big difference for families of the deceased. The efficiency of content management services saves time, which means that the slow bureaucratic process that begins when an individual passes in Kentucky will move much faster when January arrives. The time of filing a for death certificates will be cut from about a month to between 15 and 17 days he told the radio station. The system will also reduce filing errors.

"The state death registry is a crucial piece of our work of modernizing the Office of Vital Statistics, and we have enrolled many enthusiastic users across the state," Dr. Stephanie Mayfield, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said according to KyForward. "Those who have been relying on the old, paper-based system need to be aware of the upcoming change over to the electronic, web-based system. While this represents a transition in process for those who submit death information, the electronic death registry dramatically improves our death reporting system and the speed with which we are able to serve Kentuckians."

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