Established in 1805, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (the NYC Health Department) is the oldest and largest health department in the country. Our mission is to protect and improve the health of all New Yorkers, in service of a vision of a city in which all New Yorkers can realize their full health potential, regardless of who they are, how old they are, where they are from, or where they live.

As a world-renowned public health agency with a history of building transformative public health programming and infrastructure, innovating in science and scholarship to advance public health knowledge, and responding to urgent public health crises from New York City’s yellow fever outbreak in 1822, to the COVID-19 pandemic we are a hub for public health innovation, expertise, and programs, and services. We serve as the population health strategist, and policy, and planning authority for the City of New York, while also having a vast impact on national and international public policy, including programs and services focused on food and nutrition, anti-tobacco support, chronic disease prevention, HIV/AIDS treatment, family and child health, environmental health, mental health, and racial and social justice work, among others.

Our Agency’s five strategic priorities, building off a recently-completed strategic planning process emerging from the COVID-19 emergency, are:
1) To re-envision how the Health Department prepares for and responds to health emergencies, with a focus on building a “response-ready” organization, with faster decision-making, transparent public communications, and stronger surveillance and bridges to healthcare systems 2) Address and prevent chronic and diet-related disease, including addressing rising rates of childhood obesity and the impact of diabetes, and transforming our food systems to improve nutrition and enhance access to healthy foods
3) Address the second pandemic of mental illness including: reducing overdose deaths, strengthening our youth mental health systems, and supporting people with serious mental illness
4) Reduce black maternal mortality and make New York a model city for women’s health
5) Mobilize against and combat the health impacts of climate change

Our 7,000-plus team members bring extraordinary diversity to the work of public health. True to our value of equity as a foundational element of all of our work, and a critical foundation to achieving population health impact in New York City, the NYC Health Department has been a leader in recognizing and dismantling racism’s impacts on the health of New Yorkers and beyond. In 2021, the NYC Board of Health declared racism as a public health crisis. With commitment to advance anti-racist public health practices that dismantle systems that perpetuate inequitable power, opportunity and access, the NYC Health Department continues to work in and with communities and community organizations to increase their access to health services and decrease avoidable health outcomes.

PROGRAM AND JOB DESCRIPTION:

The Corrections and Amendments Unit, housed in the Division of Epidemiology, the Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS) at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene registers, amends, processes, and analyzes all vital events (births, deaths, and spontaneous and induced terminations of pregnancy) in New York City while also issuing certified copies of certificates to the public.

There are approximately 120,000 births and 52,000 deaths and about 1 million certified copies of birth and death certificates issued each year.

DUTIES WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO:

- Provide high quality customer support in adherence to agency customer service principles of respect, trust, empathy, and accountability.

- Ensure that staff provide high quality customer support in adherence to these principles.

- Work with Corrections and Amendments Unit (CAU) director and leadership to identify areas for streamlining processes to improve customer experience and identify areas for improvement.

- Characterize the current work process and propose changes for improving the process, using data to support changes.

- Examine and approve all CAU amendment types, as assigned, including Acknowledgements of Parentage, Transgender amendments, court order amendments, delayed registration amendments, adoptions, and filiations.

- Function as case navigator and provide clear, detailed next step instructions and assistance to customers with their amendment requests, including providing written guidance to customers in clear and courteous plain language.

- Approve completed customer applications as a designated Deputy City Registrar.

- Review financial reconciliation accounts from intake staff and approve or follow up with staff as needed.

- Ensure that all financial reconciliation accounts are submitted daily.

- Access secure area where security paper is stored, assign paper to staff who are printing certificates; reconcile security paper usage and ensure that all unused paper is returned to secure area and that all security protocol is followed.

- Test IT system fixes and updates/enhancements.

- Report outcome of testing to IT and Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS) leadership.

- Create tickets and report any IT issues that impact productivity and day to day operations, including communicating issues with the eVital database system, Documentum, Qmatic, customer kiosks, MS Office applications, printers, and scanners.

- Use staff trainings, professional judgement and decision making to resolve issues with customer applications, in accordance with Health Code and BVS policies and procedures.

- Provide customer support in customer lobby as assigned, including at a customer window or podium.

- Critically assess customer documents, identify any issues, and follow up with customer for resolution.

- Present complicated cases to peers at monthly case review meetings with the goal of identifying best practices and ensuring ongoing professional development, including drafting a summary of the situation, what has been done to resolve the issue and possible next steps.

- Support maintaining, or rapidly standing up, response activities across all types of possible incidents, including storms, pandemics, and other emergencies.

- This position fulfills a key Continuity of Operations role and is critical to the Health Department's fulfillment of its mission.

Qualification Requirements
A four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a State's department of education or a recognized accrediting organization and one year of satisfactory clerical experience.
Skills Requirement
Keyboard familiarity with the ability to type at a minimum of 100 key strokes (20 words) per minute.

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.