|

Better Food, Better Health:
New WIC Food Packages
The Vermont State WIC Program will
begin issuing new food packages to our WIC families October 1st, 2009!
In response to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
recommendations, the USDA revised the WIC food packages to align with
current nutrition recommendations and support the key health messages:
eat more fruits and vegetables, increase whole grains and fiber, lower
saturated fat and cholesterol, drink less juice, and babies are meant to
be breastfed. To better promote and support the establishment of
successful long-term breastfeeding, the largest amount and greatest
variety of foods are provided to mothers and babies who exclusively
breastfeed.
Highlights of Changes:
·
Addition of fruits and vegetables (replaces
most of the juice)
·
Addition of whole grain bread and brown rice
·
Calcium-set tofu and fortified soy beverage
may be substituted for milk
·
Children over age 2 will receive 1% or skim
milk (whole milk for 1 year olds)
·
Replace juice for infants with baby fruits
and vegetables
The new food packages will
align with the dietary guidance for infants and children and the
Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
For more information, please visit,
http://healthvermont.gov/wic/providers.aspx
This is an
exciting time for all families who participate in the WIC program.
Please contact your local WIC office or the
WIC State office if you have questions or would
like more information
http://healthvermont.gov/local/district/
district_office.aspx
Swine Flu Update and
Information
If you go about halfway down, under
the "Swine Flu Outbreak" heading, you'll see a bullet for "Vermont
Health Alerts and Advisories." That's where we have and will continue to
post the actual "Health Advisories" that we send to providers,
hospitals, and sometimes groups like school nurses. But there is a lot
of good other info on this page, as well as many other links.
http://healthvermont.gov/panflu/SwineFlu.aspx |
Working with Specialty Providers to Increase Rates of Children with
Chronic Illness Immunized Annually with Seasonal Influenza Vaccine: Your
Help Needed!
The Vermont Child Health Improvement
Program (VCHIP) is working with the Children’s Specialty Center (CSC) of
the Vermont Children’s Hospital to increase the rates of children
vaccinated annually against seasonal influenza in the pediatric
nephrology, cystic fibrosis, and diabetes clinics. As you know,
children with chronic illness are at particularly high risk for
complications of influenza. VCHIP has obtained UVM Institutional Review
Board and HIPAA approval for this quality improvement research project
with these clinics.
In this project, we are striving to
optimize the medical home as Vermont’s primary immunization delivery
resource. With this in mind, the specialty clinics are:
· educating families to get
seasonal influenza vaccine for these children and their close contacts
at their respective primary care practices as soon as possible this
year
· providing lists of their patients to primary care practices
so these practices can identify and recall children at especially high
risk to immunize them early in the season
· improving flu immunization tracking of children cared for in the
CSC clinics
· providing a safety net for those not immunized in primary care by
administering the immunization and notifying the primary care provider
As part of this project, many
physician practices, via their vaccine managers, will be receiving a
faxed communication and request from VCHIP later this month on behalf of
the physician leaders of the above-mentioned CSC clinics. (Ann Guillot,
MD; Tom Lahiri, MD; and Paul [P.J.] Zimakas, MD). We are making you
aware of these faxed communications to enable you, if so desired, to
discuss how they should be handled in advance by your practice vaccine
manager.
The faxes will contain:
1. A list of patients who,
according to the records of the three clinics, receive specialty care in
the CSC and primary care in your practice. The list is provided to help
facilitate your outreach to immunize these children as soon as possible
with 2009-2010 influenza vaccine.
2. A smaller list with a subset of patients for whom the clinics
are requesting your verification of any flu vaccine administered last
flu season. The vaccine manager will be asked to fax back dates of any
2008-2009 annual flu vaccine administered to children on the list. This
will help the specialty clinics determine the accuracy of parental and
self report of influenza immunization. This list is from a 20% random
sample of patients from each of the three clinics combined, minus any in
the sample for whom the clinics were already able to verify influenza
immunization in 2008-2009 that was entered into the Vermont Department
of Health Immunization Registry.
Thank you for your attention to this
matter. Your collaboration and support of this project is paramount to
its success. Please contact the Project Director, Kathleen Keating, RN
at 802-656-9190 or
Kathleen.keating@uvm.edu if you have any questions about this
project. |