RD407 - Crossroads Design, Development and Implementation WIC System Status Report


Executive Summary:
The Virginia Department of Health’s Division of Community Nutrition is a partner with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programs in Alabama, North Carolina, and West Virginia in the Crossroads Consortium. The Consortium is one of three groups working in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to design, develop, and implement State Agency Model (SAM) management information systems which will be available for transfer to WIC programs in other states and territories.

This report details the project’s progress and is submitted pursuant to Item 295 D of the 2012 Appropriations Act. Item 295 D requires the State Health Commissioner to provide written reports annually to the Chairmen of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees on the progress of the multi-state procurement of a database formally known as the Crossroads WIC System. The written report must describe the division's efforts to ensure that through system design and procurement, adequate participant access can be achieved without the current use of slotting or other similar vendor limiting criteria and that the new system allows peer groups to be changed to reflect marketplace dynamics and ensures a more equitable vendor comparison. The Division's efforts to coordinate and collaborate with stakeholders must also be included in the report.

Development of the Crossroads system continued in 2012 and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is scheduled for 2013. The Virginia WIC team has reviewed Functional Design Documents for each module of the Crossroads system. Subject matter experts from Virginia participated in hands-on review of the Finance, Food Maintenance, and Vendor Management screens at the Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) facility in Overland Park, Kansas. Integration testing for partner systems began in June 2012. Work on several outstanding change requests will continue through February 2013 and the application will enter formal UAT in March 2013.