Administration

The Administration Division provides customer service and financial, preparedness, communications, policy and equity, and planning support for all division of the health department.

Most of 2020 was focused on COVID-19 prevention efforts. The administration division, along with other divisions in the department, shifted their work priorities to assist in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 in the community. This included coordinating a team of temporary staff to conduct contact tracing for the county. Much of the public health planning work concentrated on recruiting, hiring, training and supervising that aspect of WCHD's COVID-19 response. In addition, many staff in the administration division worked supporting COVID-19 testing, vaccination efforts and assisting the equitable distribution of vaccination to hard to reach populations, among other COVID-19 response work.

Strategic Planning:

One of the highlights of 2020 related to public health planning was the completion of the department's strategic plan.

Staff, members of the leadership team, and Board of Health members participated in multiple activities related to updating WCHD’s strategic plan. Community input was also sought out and included in the plan.

Staff had the opportunity to develop mission statements for their respective divisions; and the department developed a new mission and vision statement to better reflect the changing landscape of public health.

Four strategic priorities emerged from the work, accompanied by specific focus areas, goals and measurables. The priorities represent the commitment the department has to its staff, the community, the achievement toward organizational excellence and efforts related to sustainability and fiscal responsibility of the organization.

Although the launch and operationalization of the strategic plan was interrupted because of COVID, there are plans in place to communicate and implement the department's strategic plan in 2021 and beyond.

Performance Management:

WCHD was awarded one of 12 licenses across the state to serve as a performance management pilot site to develop dashboards for various public health topics. The project is a collaboration with the state health department and Clear Impact, a performance management software service whose work is based on the Results Based Accountability framework. Work continues into 2020 for the development of dashboards for multiple divisions within WCHD.

Strategic_Plan_2020.pdf

WCHD Policy Team

When local health officials and staff become involved in the legislative process and share their expertise and experiences with decision makers, local health departments collectively have a stronger voice to support and advance public health initiatives. In order to make these efforts more deliberate, a Policy Team was developed in 2017 to create a process for assessing, promoting, supporting and tracking health policies related to WCHD.

Goals:

  1. Maintain an internal infrastructure that allows for advocacy and policy work.

  2. Develop, support, and advocate for public health related policies using a Health in All Policies approach.

Health Equity Team

The Health Equity Team brings together the perspectives of all areas within the health department, working towards building a stronger understanding of and commitment to health equity. The overall vision for our health equity work is: Health outcomes for residents in Winnebago County will not be determined by social identity or socially determined group status such as, but not limited to, ability, gender identify, geography, income or race.

Communications:

  • The number of Facebook followers in 2020 continued to increase throughout the year with 1,032 in January 2020 and 6,060 in December 2020.

  • Responded to approximately 100 media inquiries.

  • Focused on keeping the community up-to-date on the COVID-19 response through social media, our website, direct emails, Situation Updates and Data Summaries.