The Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) is one of 67 Public Health Departments under the governance of the integrated Florida Department of Health (DOH). Although DOH-Broward is a state agency, it maintains a very strong partnership with Broward County Government, which is formalized in a core contract. The main administrative campus is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with additional facilities in geographically accessible locations. DOH-Broward is responsible for protecting, promoting, and improving the health of the county"s 1.9 million residents and over 10 million annual visitors.
According to the U.S. Census population estimates for July 2021, Broward County is the 17th most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 million people and 9% of Florida's residents. 34.1% of residents are foreign-born. The population is increasingly diverse with significant growth among minority racial and ethnic groups. Among Broward residents, 63.1% identify as White; 30.2% Black or African American including many who immigrated from Haiti, Jamaica, and other parts of the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. 31.1 % of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. 37.5% of the population speaks a language other than English in the home.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women Infants and Children (WIC), serves low-income pregnant, post-partum, and breastfeeding women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk. The program provides nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, breastfeeding promotion, and support, as well as referrals to healthcare. Broward County has over 58,000 residents potentially eligible for the WIC program. WIC-Broward has approximately 49,000 individuals currently enrolled in the program.
As a result of the COVID pandemic, we experienced several staffing issues that impacted service delivery such as staff out with COVID or exposure to COVID, staff resignations, and the inability to successfully recruit candidates. Because of this, we were unable to keep-up with the demand of clients with scheduled appointments clients calling the call center with pending certification/enrollment, the inability of staff to reach clients when calling from the appointment list, clients returning the missed call by calling the DOH-Broward call center and an influx of emails received from the call center to WIC Administration staff to add/modify the appointment list queue.
The initiative in which we are applying for a model practice is called the Broward WIC POD (Person of the Day.) The purpose of this practice is to provide a method in which clients who contact the WIC program are immediately transferred to WIC staff assigned to the Broward WIC POD for service over the phone. This ensures that clients are served when they contact us versus waiting for a call back from WIC staff.