The West Virginia Office of Maternal, Child and Family (OMCFH) has the good fortune to employ high level epidemiologists.  In 2019, the Department of Personnel increased the starting salaries for epidemiologists which helped tremendously with hiring and retention.  As entry level epidemiologists (Epidemiologist I’s) increase their involvement in programs and become more defined in responsibilities related to the programs they increase their need to become reclassified at the next level.  If the new/additional responsibilities are approved by DOP and the staff member meets the qualifications, then paperwork is submitted to request advancement.  This also increases retention and satisfaction.

Currently, OMCFH employs three Epidemiologist IIIs, seven (2 are vacant) Epidemiologist IIs and six (3 are vacant) Epidemiologist Is.  These Epidemiologists cover Perinatal Risk Screening Instrument (PRSI), PRAMS, Home Visitation (MIECHV),  Right From the Start (Medicaid Home Visitation Program), Early Periodic, Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) called HealthCheck, Violence and Injury Prevention (VIPP), Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention (CLPP), Newborn Hearing Screening (NHS), Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening (BCCSP), Family Planning, Oral Health, Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN), drug overdoses and deaths, Firearm Safety, birth defects, and Infant and Maternal Mortality.  Some epidemiologists cover more than one program and all participate in special studies or projects as they arise in OMCFH.  Because of the versatility of the Epi Unit and using different grant funding to cover salaries of the epidemiologists, the OMCFH is able to capture and analyze statistical information across a wide range of public health topics impacting maternal and child health.  The OMCFH has access to death records, occurrence births, birth defects using a passive system, newborn hearing screening, newborn metabolic screening, State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS), Syndromic Surveillance (Essence) data using ER and Med Express data, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome data, PRAMS, prescription drugs, Early Intervention/Part C called Birth To Three (BTT), Home Visitation data, COVID positive pregnant women and their infants, children diagnosed with MIS-C, infant and mortality review, childhood lead poisoning, Medicaid eligibility, breast and cervical cancer screening and foster children data.

The OMCFH also employs by contract staff for evaluation efforts for some of our programs, including WISEWOMAN, oral health and prescription drug overdose.

The OMCFH has in place a contract with WVU Project Watch, formerly the Birth Score Program, that collects data for the OMCFH on the infant’s risk of developmental delay or death within the first year of life including IUSE, NAS, newborn hearing screening, and Critical Congenital Heart Disease.  This information is compiled at the birthing facility before discharge and sent to Project Watch.  Project Watch also provides analysis when requested or will share data sets.  Physicians are notified of high-risk infants and NAS diagnosis and referrals are automatically sent to RFTS for home visitation services, BTT and CSHCN. 

The OMCFH also financially supports three epidemiology positions from the Board of Pharmacy who are housed within the OMCFH.  This collaboration provides the opportunity to provide prescription drug information for various program activities and assessments. 

The Health Statistics Center (Vital Statistics) provides monthly birth sampling for PRAMS, infant and maternal mortality data for the Infant and Maternal Mortality Review Panel, access to the death file and occurrence birth file, overdose deaths and requests for resident infant deaths and birth information on birth outcomes such as prematurity, smoking during pregnancy, gestational age, etc. 

Birth defects information, as legislatively mandated, is collected monthly from each birthing facility. These records are sent electronically as agreed upon by the MOUs established with each facility.

The OMCFH also collects data on a woman’s first prenatal visit to determine risk.  This collection tool is called the Prenatal Risk Screening Instrument (PRSI).  This collection tool has transitioned from a teleform submission to a web-based system for all providers to enter the form electronically and in real time. Information on Medicaid patients is shared with Medicaid to distribute to the appropriate Medicaid Managed Care Organization. 

The Hospital Association also provides data on hospital discharges, this data however does not have identifiers so OMCFH lacks the capacity to data match with existing data sources.  The same situation occurs with WIC, data is available but in a deidentified file.