The Office of Maternal, Child and Family Health (OMCFH) is the Title V agency in West Virginia (WV).  While the Office brings together under one umbrella a variety of programs and projects, its leadership uses its available resources and partnerships to optimize health across the lifespan, for all people.  DHHR leadership rely on the Office to provide a crosswalk between public health and its child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid systems on a broad range of topics related to maternal and child health.  In addition, the Office’s infrastructure combined with its utilization and access to data makes it a go-to place for high priority special projects. 

The Office places great value on its partnerships and leverages its relationships to accomplish many of the goals outlined with its State Action Plan.  Key external partnerships include the State’s Perinatal Partnership (Perinatal Collaborative), academic institutions, medical and programmatic advisory boards, health care providers, the Department of Education, and the families served by its Programs.  OMCFH actively convenes medical and programmatic advisory boards but also serves in leadership roles for many external groups.  For example, staff serve on the Perinatal Partnership’s Central Advisory Council, the Executive Committee of the Developmental Disabilities Council, and the Steering Committee of the State’s cancer coalition, Mountains of Hope. 

The Title V funded Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) Program functions to support family-centered, coordinated, ongoing comprehensive care for children and youth with special health care needs within a medical home.  CSHCN Program Care Coordinators (Nurses and Social Workers) work to facilitate a team approach to health care, with coordination across multiple services and settings, in accordance with the National Consensus Standards for Systems of Care for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs.  The following care coordination functions are provided for all clients enrolled CSHCN Program:

• Advocating family-centered, coordinated, ongoing comprehensive care within a medical home.
• Ensuring an appropriate written care plan.
• Promoting communications within the medical home team and ensuring defined minimal intervals between said communications.
• Supporting and/or facilitating (as appropriate) care transitions from practice to practice and from the pediatric to adult systems of care.
• Supporting the medical home’s capacity for electronic health information and exchange; and 
• Facilitating access to comprehensive home and community-based supports.

In WV, OMCFH has a major role in establishing standards, policies, and procedures for health care services, interpreting standards to providers, providing education to enhance implementation, promoting quality of care, and assessing progress.  The State Medicaid Agency has commissioned managed care organizations to provide comprehensive health services to West Virginia Medicaid members, including children receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Medicaid.  The West Virginia Medicaid Managed Care Program’s management of children with special health care needs is closely integrated with the CSHCN Program.  Moreover, the OMCFH and contracted managed care organizations have agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish roles and responsibilities between the OMCFH and contracted managed care organizations for the purposes of providing coordination of services to promote prompt access to high-quality child health services for children eligible for benefits under Titles V and XIX of the Social Security Act.  Said MOU, which remains in full force and effect for the duration of the contract between OMCFH and each Managed Care Organization (MCO), stipulates that “as a component of its statutorily required managed care quality strategy, MCO will make available summary reporting data to OMCFH, including the Core Set of Children’s Health Care Quality Measures for Medicaid and CHIP (Child Core Set), to enable the Title V agency to monitor and evaluate its quality initiatives, including care furnished to CSHCN.”

As a result of the opioid crisis, the Office has developed several innovative practices in recent years and is planning new work for Fiscal Year 2021.  As a result of the Pandemic the Office has developed innovative practices to continue to provide all services offered to clients with some deviation from in-home provision.  Communication with families using Skype and Zoom has proved invaluable. The Office utilized its legislatively mandated Birth Score Instrument to establish a surveillance system for neonatal abstinence syndrome in October 2016.  This data collection tool continues to mature, evolve and transform as more is learned about NAS.  The Birth Score data collection will be used by the Office and its academic partners to study NAS associated birth defects, infant mortality, as well as impacts to its service programs like Birth to Three, Home Visitation, and foster care.  This information will inform public health policy, resource allocation, and evidence-based practices across the State. 

In addition, this data illustrates the need to recommend, assist and guide high risk women to delay pregnancy until they are ready.  The Office will continue to offer comprehensive reproductive health care services to persons in correctional facilities and those seeking syringe exchange in harm reduction clinics.  This work is grounded in the best available evidence for reproductive health, but provision of these services in new settings require innovation, quality assurance monitoring, and program evaluation. 

The Office integrates into its work the core public health functions of assessment, assurance, and policy development.  OMCFH routinely reviews incidence rates and maps available data for program planning. 

In addition, the Office actively works to manage resources and develop organizational structure, implement and evaluate programs, and inform and educate the public.  Examples of this work include:

• Implementation of over 25 ongoing Programs and projects that meet the needs of maternal and child health populations.
• Maintenance of an active Quality Assurance Monitoring Unit that routinely evaluates the quality of care provided by its Title X, early intervention, and breast and cervical cancer screening program providers; and
• Deployment of a network of public health educators that provide education on a wide range of topics including teen pregnancy, comprehensive sex education, women’s health, developmental screening, substance abuse, oral health, injury prevention, and bullying.
• Enhancing the review process and data collection for Infant and Maternal Mortality.