Public Act 097-0376
 
HB1658 EnrolledLRB097 08042 RPM 48165 b

    AN ACT concerning public health.
 
    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
 
    Section 5. The Vital Records Act is amended by changing
Section 18 as follows:
 
    (410 ILCS 535/18)  (from Ch. 111 1/2, par. 73-18)
    Sec. 18. (1) Each death which occurs in this State shall be
registered by filing a death certificate with the local
registrar of the district in which the death occurred or the
body was found, within 7 days after such death (within 5 days
if the death occurs prior to January 1, 1989) and prior to
cremation or removal of the body from the State, except when
death is subject to investigation by the coroner or medical
examiner.
        (a) For the purposes of this Section, if the place of
    death is unknown, a death certificate shall be filed in the
    registration district in which a dead body is found, which
    shall be considered the place of death.
        (b) When a death occurs on a moving conveyance, the
    place where the body is first removed from the conveyance
    shall be considered the place of death and a death
    certificate shall be filed in the registration district in
    which such place is located.
        (c) The funeral director who first assumes custody of a
    dead body shall be responsible for filing a completed death
    certificate. He shall obtain the personal data from the
    next of kin or the best qualified person or source
    available; he shall enter on the certificate the name,
    relationship, and address of his informant; he shall enter
    the date, place, and method of final disposition; he shall
    affix his own signature and enter his address; and shall
    present the certificate to the person responsible for
    completing the medical certification of cause of death. The
    person responsible for completing the medical
    certification of cause of death must note the presence of
    methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, clostridium
    difficile, or vancomycin-resistant enterococci if it is a
    contributing factor to or the cause of death. Additional
    multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) may be added to this
    list by the Department by rule.
    (2) The medical certification shall be completed and signed
within 48 hours after death by the physician in charge of the
patient's care for the illness or condition which resulted in
death, except when death is subject to the coroner's or medical
examiner's investigation. In the absence of the physician or
with his approval, the medical certificate may be completed and
signed by his associate physician, the chief medical officer of
the institution in which death occurred or by the physician who
performed an autopsy upon the decedent.
    (3) When a death occurs without medical attendance, or when
it is otherwise subject to the coroner's or medical examiner's
investigation, the coroner or medical examiner shall be
responsible for the completion of a coroner's or medical
examiner's certificate of death and shall sign the medical
certification within 48 hours after death, except as provided
by regulation in special problem cases. If the decedent was
under the age of 18 years at the time of his or her death, and
the death was due to injuries suffered as a result of a motor
vehicle backing over a child, or if the death occurred due to
the power window of a motor vehicle, the coroner or medical
examiner must send a copy of the medical certification, with
information documenting that the death was due to a vehicle
backing over the child or that the death was caused by a power
window of a vehicle, to the Department of Children and Family
Services. The Department of Children and Family Services shall
(i) collect this information for use by Child Death Review
Teams and (ii) compile and maintain this information as part of
its Annual Child Death Review Team Report to the General
Assembly.
    (3.5) The medical certification of cause of death shall
expressly provide an opportunity for the person completing the
certification to indicate that the death was caused in whole or
in part by a dementia-related disease, Parkinson's Disease, or
Parkinson-Dementia Complex.
    (4) When the deceased was a veteran of any war of the
United States, the funeral director shall prepare a
"Certificate of Burial of U. S. War Veteran", as prescribed and
furnished by the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, and
submit such certificate to the Illinois Department of Veterans'
Affairs monthly.
    (5) When a death is presumed to have occurred in this State
but the body cannot be located, a death certificate may be
prepared by the State Registrar upon receipt of an order of a
court of competent jurisdiction which includes the finding of
facts required to complete the death certificate. Such death
certificate shall be marked "Presumptive" and shall show on its
face the date of the registration and shall identify the court
and the date of the judgment.
(Source: P.A. 96-1000, eff. 7-2-10.)
 
    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect July 1,
2011.