The Southeast Utah Health Department (SEUHD) hosted a regularly scheduled board meeting on Tuesday evening where the board discussed many topics.
One such topic was an update on the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) program. It was announced that beginning on Oct. 26, Southeast WIC will be rolling out new E-WIC cards, which will replace the current voucher program. It was stated that this has been a long time coming, about ten years.
Utah is one of the last states to implement the card system and the pilot programs are currently running in some of the clinics in Weber, Morgan, Davis and Summit counties. It was reported that the pilot programs are going very well thus far.
Southeast Utah will be a part of the first wave that is not the pilot program. The SEUHD has begun to inform clients of the change, which is going to streamline the shopping experience for WIC clients, which is one of the biggest complaints as to why a client may not choose to stay with the program.
The SEUHD expressed great excitement over this update to the program. It was stated that the voucher system has been in place for about the last 20 years and with the vouchers, clients and cashiers must deal with issues pertaining to the right food choices. With the cards, it is not quite the same.
Everything will be based off of a UPC code with the cards. With the first wave, clients will be unable to use the self-checkout stands. However, there is hope that it will be available within the next six months.
It was also expressed that there will likely still be vouchers in use until around February as clients are transitioned to the new program.