The West Virginia Department of
Health and Human Resources, Bureau for Public Health, Office of Nutrition
Services was recently awarded a Special Project Innovation Grant by the Council
of State Governments (CSG). Through a
cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and
Nutrition Service (FNS), CSG announced grant awards to Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) agencies for customer
service enhancements to the certification and eligibility determination
process.
The West Virginia WIC Program, in
collaboration with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Women, Infants and Children, will
provide local WIC agencies access to their state’s Health Information Exchange
(HIE), implement a document exchange portal as well as establish WIC medical
liaisons to conduct outreach to medical providers. The WIC medical liaison will
establish and maintain relationships with health care providers to educate
about the WIC Program, promote the HIE, and outline benefits to patients for
participation in the HIE with referrals to WIC as a third component of the
grant.
“This grant project will focus on
increasing the efficiency of the certification process and increasing applicant
and provider awareness of WIC. It also aims to increase satisfaction with the
certification and referral process,” said West Virginia WIC Director, Heidi
Staats. “Major barriers to an efficient certification appointment are
appointment logistics and long wait times for initial certification
appointments but two components of the grant project will reduce the time for
certification by local WIC clinics.”
A goal of the project is to
strengthen WIC’s role as an adjunct to healthcare and reduce the length of
appointments. By accessing height, weight, and anthropometric health data
through the HIE, and receiving residency and income documentation via a secure
portal, an applicant’s eligibility assessment can be initiated prior to their
arrival in the WIC clinic.
“Continuing to implement
technology into WIC service provision ensures remaining on pace with changes in
healthcare and building WIC services as a relevant, important support to the
medical home,” Staats added. “Millennial and Generation Z parents have a
reliance, preference and expectation for technology.”
West Virginia provides WIC
services at 57 WIC clinic locations spanning the entire state. According to the USDA FNS, approximately 49%
of the state’s eligible target population received WIC services in 2017 (https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic-2017-eligibility-and-coverage-rates#6).
During the COVID-19 public health
emergency, West Virginia WIC continues to offer certification, benefit
issuance, and nutrition and breastfeeding education virtually. For more information about the WIC Program, visit https://dhhr.wv.gov/wic/Pages/default.aspx.