Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department puts reports Online

Searching for health inspectors’ reports just got a bit easier in Muskingum County.

The Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department is now offering an online database with full reports from its inspections. Prior to this initiative, all reports were filed away in filing cabinets at the health department. And while those reports are available to the public as public records, Sanitarium Supervisor Ed Shaffer says it now makes the records more transparent.

"This is all part of a state program that is available to local health departments that is basically shifting us to go paperless with all of our inspection reports, and as we’re going paperless it makes it very easy to make these inspections viewable through the internet."

All food inspections are up online and the health department is working at getting this extended to other inspections including sewage systems, tattoo and piercing establishments, and others within the year.

"We’re not changing what’s being viewed," Shaffer said. "If we try to summarize, in many cases it’s not telling the full story as to what was observed and what corrective actions were taken to eliminate the problem."