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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
234

WIC/Immunization Linkage - Culture, Collaboration and Commitment

Pamela Johnson, Immunization Program, Washington State Department of Health, Box 47843, Olympia, WA, USA and Sheryl Pickering, WIC Program, WA State Department of Health, PO Box 47886, Olympia, WA, USA.


BACKGROUND:
Washington State WIC and Immunization Programs began collaborating in 1996. Since that time their collaboration efforts have incorporated a number of different processes and activities to further their linkage goal of "Healthier Children in Washington State".

OBJECTIVE:
To describe the various components of culture, collaboration and commitment and the role each plays in the success of cross program collaboration.

METHOD:
This collaboration has incorporated many activities/strategies to enhance the breadth and depth of WIC/Immunization linkage in Washington State. These include a Statewide WIC/IZ Planning Workgroup, Department of Health Internal Planning Workgroup, projects to populate the CHILD Profile Immunization Registry, conference exhibits/presentations and outside consultant work.

RESULT:
The Statewide Planning Workgroup developed a 3-5 year strategic plan that outlined a variety of activities to guide linkage activities from 2002-2006. From this plan, staff developed the WIC Immunization Record Round-Up Project, the process for developing a linkage between the WIC and CHILD Profile Immunization Registry databases, consultant analysis report and a number of other innovative, creative ways to promote this vital cross program work.

CONCLUSION:
Successful WIC/Immunization linkage involves the 3 C's: acknowledgement of the importance of individual program CULTURE, COLLABORATION activities on a variety of state and local levels and COMMITMENT to the process from the top to the bottom.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
-Describe the importance of understanding program culture when doing cross program collaboration.
-Describe one way the immunization registry benefits from WIC/Immunization linkage.
-Describe the importance of commitment when doing cross program collaboration.

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See more of The 39th National Immunization Conference (NIC)