Low cost health information technology to improve the quality of cause of death certification data

Registration of vital events in Sri Lanka has a history dating back to the 18th century. Various enactments were added to improve the system with the aim of making the registration complete. However, issues relating to the quality and timeliness of the information remain, which indeed minimise the usefulness of the cause of death information though demands exponentially increase, particularly for health sector planning. Digital scanning of basic documents relating to cause of death and transmitting it digitally to the central vital statistics unit for the processing was thought to be a low cost technology and was expected to reduce human errors. 33 document scanning centres were established island-wide. The scanned documents were transmitted digitally to the vital statistics unit at central level for coding, processing and reporting. Qualitative assessment showed that this system reduced the processing time and minimised erroneous reporting. This system facilitates digital storing and transferring; thus reducing the fear of loss or damage to the physical documents.