Texas WIC aims to improve participant experience with Microsoft cloud solution
Providing nutritional benefits and educating mothers about proper nutrition for infants and young children in Texas is about to become much easier: The state agency tasked with this mission is moving to the cloud with the Microsoft Cloud Solution for WIC, which is built on the Microsoft Government Cloud.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is a health and nutrition program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered at the state level. Its goal is to improve the diet of infants, children, and women who are pregnant, postpartum or breastfeeding and at risk for nutrition-related illness.
WIC statistics show that states reported average participation of more than 8 million people per month across the United States. Out of that 8 million, roughly four million are children, with the other half split between infants and women. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) delivers the WIC program to eligible participants in all 254 Texas counties through 600-plus clinics, providing services to more than 875,000 women, infants and children each month.
The state’s current MIS system was implemented in 1995 and has outlived its usefulness. With challenges such as daily backup and data sync requirements, participants have needed to wait for information to sync prior to receiving their benefits. Not only does that create hardship for recipients who are often not able to travel back to the WIC office multiple times a week, but the antiquated system has also led to gaps in benefit coverage during outages.
To help address some of these challenges, Texas WIC needed a solution that was scalable for future growth, cloud-based to reduce downtime and coverage gaps, and optimized to enhance the participant experience through efficient certification and disbursement of immediate benefits.
The Microsoft Cloud Solution for WIC, based on the Microsoft Government Cloud, provides all of that on a secured platform. In addition, because of Dynamics CRM Online Government (part of the Microsoft Government Cloud) and its robust reporting solution, administrators will have a data-centric way to better measure and track health outcomes and make more informed decisions about future services.
On top of the improvements in eligibility and health recommendations that will result from the new solution, case workers and beneficiaries alike will also see vast improvements and efficiencies in scheduling and inventory management, reduced wait times, improved customer service, and enhanced employee mobility.
To gain perspective of the full participant experience and better understand how the updated system will benefit Texas WIC, Vexcel, a Microsoft subsidiary which will build and implement the solution, took 25 staff members to clinics in the City of Austin and Williamson County for a WIC program immersion day. The group learned clinic processes, spoke with employees about their roles, and participated in a mock grocery store visit where they could only purchase WIC foods. These hands-on experiences were d invaluable to the Vexcel Microsoft team, allowing us to use these insights to develop an even better system that supports the unique needs of Texas WIC.
Ultimately, with its upcoming deployment, the new system will make huge strides in allowing Texas WIC staff to focus on their clients, helping them spend more time providing one-on-one services and nutrition education for women, infants, and children throughout the state.
Please visit our Cloud Map for more information on how state and federal agencies across the country are using the Microsoft Government Cloud. Governments around the corner and across the U.S. are modernizing their systems using this secure, hyperscale cloud computing platform that meets agencies’ unique regulatory compliance requirements for security and privacy.
