The Intrepid Nine

Congratulations are in order for nine states recently awarded WIC EBT Planning grants. They are:

• Alabama


• Colorado


• Delaware


• District of Columbia


• Illinois


• Missouri


• Montana


• Oregon


• Pennsylvania

These nine states will soon embark on an exciting journey-determining the feasibility of WIC EBT for their individual states, determining what type of technology works best for them, gathering information from WIC retail vendors, local WIC agencies and others on the business processes to be incorporated in the new system, and working with the Food and Nutrition Service to develop RFPs for planning and, hopefully, for implementation.

As they walk down this road, they are walking in the footsteps of many other WIC agencies who have gone before them. States like Wyoming, one of the earliest converts to the WIC EBT concept and a proud participant in the groundbreaking Health Passport concept.

And Michigan, the state that incubated the first successful statewide online WIC EBT project. And Texas, which proved the viability of its "commercial" cost model in rolling out an offline EBT project across that vast state.

These nine states, along with the handful that are currently operating WIC EBT statewide, and the few that are in planning now, will comprise about 20% of the WIC states, territories and tribal organizations. Now WIC EBT is starting to look like something.

2010 may be the year that WIC EBT passes from an interesting concept to a battle-tested delivery system capable of nationwide deployment.

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For more information on the current state of WIC EBT, including the search for national standards, interfacing with legacy systems, and evaluating online and offline technology, make plans to attend EBT The Next Generation Nov. 8-10 in New Orleans. For more information, or to register for the conference, click here.