Making death reporting easy with mobile apps

Clinicians in New Hampshire are gaining a new way of reporting cause of deaths, by using their smartphones. The new electronic Cause of Death (eCOD) mobile app allows for clinicians to follow step by step instruction to enter detailed information in regards to patient deaths.

The app, available for free at both the Apple and Google Play online stores, aims at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of reporting death records to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The app can be accessed by any user with a valid New Hampshire Vital Records Information Network login and offers a step-by-step guide in filling out the detail of the certification process. It is available online and offline, gives reminders of pending death records that have passed the time for certification and gives alerts on new requests from funeral directors.

“In almost real time, we can share this cause-of-death information with New Hampshire’s health department or the CDC, so if they’re doing surveillance, looking for any (outbreak), they can say, ‘It looks like we’ve got a pocket of something’ . . . and do more,” said Stephen Wurtz, New Hampshire’s state registrar and director of the Division of Vital Records Administration, in a statement to the Concord Monitor.