United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The process of registering a birth & issuance of the birth certificate was a complete manual process. The information was first gathered in the Labour Room manually using the appropriate hard-copy forms and attaching copies of the parent’s identification cards. This form would then be sent via fax to Central Informatics Organization for updating in their back-end systems manually and then issuing the personal number for the new born. Once this number has been created, the same form is faxed back to the Hospital Administration Office who in turn would send it to Birth Section for manual processing. The back-end system available at Birth Section did not have real-time interface with Central Informatics Organization, which is a main factor in causing delays in issuing the Birth Certificate.

The previous process would generate a personal number for the newborn and creation of a Birth Certificate within 7 to 10 working days and even longer when public holidays are present.

By unifying the data entry in one location and sharing this information to all various back-end environments, this ensured consistency in the data and that the information that has been approved by the parent is the one registered. Moreover, the Birth Section is now able to track the status/flow of all birth notifications once it has been entered by the Hospital.
In addition, the personal number of the new born is now generated immediately upon confirmation of the delivery data by the parent and is sent via SMS notification to him/her.

Another delivery improvement was seen in the delivery time of the Birth Certificate. The certificate is now immediately sent via Post to the parent on their delivery address of choice. Previously, the parent had to visit his/her health centre numerous times to pick-up the certificate.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Online Birth Certificate Request fully automates the entry of delivery data, to the creation of a new-born’s personal number, to the payment of the birth certificate and the printing and mailing of the Birth Certificate to the parents. This will ensure that the data entered is consistent across all the various entities that process this information, is in a secure repository (where data does not get misplaced), is confidential (as papers are not left around on counters and by fax machines), and is available 24/7 for personal number creation as it is not dependent on human interaction. With the new process, the personal number is generated within seconds of submission and the certificate is printed within 2 to 5 business days from receipt. The customer no longer needs to visit multiple areas and pay in several locations to obtain the Birth Certificate & Personal Number of their newborn. They are now also able to review the information submitted about the delivery to ensure the data is accurate once submitted. Within a day or two of delivery, the parents will receive an SMS notification of the Personal Number generated for their newborn and a request for them to finalize the Hospital Admission requirements. Once that is done, the parent can then pay the certificate fees (and select the number of copies they require) online via the eGovernment Portal. Upon successful payment, the request will then be automatically rerouted to the various involved parties who would process the birth certificate and send it via Bahrain Post to the address provided by the parent.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The eBirth service was one of the key services envisaged as a part of the eGovernment strategy. The reason being, more than 22,000 certificates issued per year and each certificate taking a minimum of 10 days for issuance. The new service was proposed by the eGovernment Authority. The new automated process involved multiple stakeholders – Ministry of health (MoH), Central Informatics organization (CIO), eGovernment authority (eGA) and Ministry of Transportation (MoT)-Bahrain Post. The roles of the respective stakeholders were the following: MoH: Primary owner of the service, providing the business requirements, development support with backend connections, updation of data, print and dispatch the birth certificate etc. eGA: Conduct as-is study, recommend to-be process with appropriate process reengineering, Design and develop the solution, integrating with the MoH and CIO data bases, testing and deploy the solution, undertake training to the users, marketing and awareness of the service to the public. CIO: Integrate with the population database, generate and issue of the personal number MoT: Deliver the birth certificate to the customer

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The eGovernment Strategy was defined to include services that would help support both Citizen & Business lifecycles. eBirth service was the first service that would set in motion the Citizen lifecycle. A Workforce of various representatives of all stakeholders was established. Initiatives, objectives, and benefits of this service were defined and outlined. The objective was to have a fully automated solution that will allow for parents of newborns to receive both their child’s personal number and Birth Certificate without the need to visit any Government Entity after being discharged from the Hospital. This would require seamless integration between the biggest two stakeholders (CIO & Ministry of Health) to ensure transference of data between both systems was accurate and done in a timely manner. Both technical and business teams were set-up to define the requirements, functionality, and any technical limitations to ensure the above objective is attained.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Key development and implementation steps included the following: 1) Automation of the current Manual Form by integrating the online system with the back-end at Birth & Death section, Public Health Directorate 2) Updating Birth & Death section back-end systems from the previous mainframe system to Oracle to allow for integration of the online service 3) Automation of the newborn Personal Number generation by integrating the automated form created in point 1 above with CIO while adhering to all naming and nationality rules set forth by CIO 4) Integration of the online service used by the parent with the payment gateway and back-end system at Birth & Death Section

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles in implementing this solution were as follows: 1. Resistance to Change: Key players who will be responsible in inputting the required delivery information were resistant to change of their current tried and tested method. They were skeptical on the advantages of entering all the information online, automated verification and processing. Several training sessions took place to present the idea to the key players/users and the benefits of having an online form versus the traditional method. The efficiency of completing the form, the auto-validation and integrated infant personal number generation presented great advantages to them and we were able to convince them of its use 24/7 in place of the current manual method. 2. Trust by Citizens: Parents of newborns were reluctant to sign-off on an online generated form that contained data of their child and his/her delivery. The concept of receiving the personal number automatically via SMS was a foreign idea and due to its sensitivity, some parents were weary of its success. Citizens were also reluctant to pay online for the Birth Certificate Fees as ecommerce was not a concept that they understood. This was overcome by increasing awareness of the success rate of online transactions and building their trust in the benefits of automated solutions. 3. Security: This service had numerous integrations across different stakeholders which would access sensitive and personal data. We had to ensure that the connections did not pose any threat to the data integrity and that no external connections could breach this secure line. This obstacle was overcome by ensuring that all security standards in place within the Government Data Network were implemented and that all access points were granted based on various permissions such as IP Address, User Accounts and location of use.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Several teams were constructed to support this initiative: 1) Teams composed from representatives of Salamaniya Medical Complex Labor Room to support data entry 2) Teams composed from representatives from all the Health Centers in the Kingdom of Bahrain to support receipt of payment of Birth Certificate 3) Teams composed from representatives of IT Directorate at Ministry of Health to support back-end database requirements 4) Teams composed from representatives of Public Health Directorate at Ministry of Health who would be responsible for issuing the Birth Certificate 5) Teams composed from representatives of Bahrain Post who would be in charge of delivering the Birth Certificate to the Parents/Informants 6) Teams composed from representatives of CIO to support integration and automation of Child Personal Number Generation 7) Teams composed from representatives of the eGovernment Authority to ensure successful development and integration of all the various components of the solution This solution is funded as part of the eGovernment Strategy to deploy 200 services on the eGovernment Portal by 2010.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The eGovernment strategy and programme is implementing over 200 eServices in collaboration with various ministries. As this is an ongoing transformation initiative each of the services developed requires a large amount of process reengineering efforts, change management, integration and development of multiple systems. The eBirth service is one of the well integrated service connecting multiple organizations and workflows spanning across different ministries. The service is developed based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and uses web services. Therefore, any future changes / integration / scalability in terms of new features could be easily added in the service. This service development therefore acts as an example for such complex and integrated service. eGA can transfer / extend the knowhow developed through this implementation to other complex service developments and also to ministries.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The key elements were the seamless integration across various stakeholders and the increased efficiency and turnaround in producing newborn personal number regardless of weekends or public holidays. Additionally, the elimination of unnecessary steps on the parents allowed them to receive their child’s Birth Certificate at the comfort of their home in a significantly shorter timeframe than the previous manual method.


Institution Name:		eGovernment Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Heyam Ebrahim Hazeem
Title:		Assistant Director of Service Delivery
Telephone/ Fax:		: +973 17388303
Institution's / Project's Website:		+973 17388338
E-mail:		hhazeem@ega.gov.bh
Address:		10th Floor, Euro Tower, Bldg No 485, Road No 1010
Postal Code:		PO Box 75533
City:		Sanabis
State/Province:
Country:		Bahrain

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information