130A-117. Persons required to keep records and provide information.

(a) All persons in charge of hospitals or other institutions, public or private, to which persons resort for confinement or treatment of diseases or to which persons are committed by process of law, shall make a record of personal data concerning each person admitted or confined to the institution. The record shall include information required for the certificates of birth and death and the reports of spontaneous fetal death required by this Article. The record shall be made at the time of admission from information provided by the person being admitted or confined. When this information cannot be obtained from this person, it shall be obtained from relatives or other knowledgeable persons.

(b) When a dead body or dead fetus of 20 weeks gestation or more is released or disposed of by an institution, the person in charge of the institution shall keep a record showing the name of the decedent, date of death, name and address of the person to whom the body or fetus is released and the date of removal from the institution. If final disposition is made by the institution, the date, place, and manner of disposition shall also be recorded.

(c) A funeral director, embalmer, or other person who removes from the place of death, transports or makes final disposition of a dead body or fetus, shall keep a record which shall identify the body, and information pertaining to the receipt, removal, delivery, burial, or cremation of the body, as may be required by the State Registrar. In addition, that person shall file a certificate or other report required by this Article or the rules of the Commission.

(d) Records maintained under this section shall be retained for a period of not less than three years and shall be made available for inspection by the State Registrar upon request.