Utah is Using Program Charters to Maximize PHIG Funding and Plan for Sustainability
Success StoriesIn this video, Brooke Campos, Workforce Development Coordinator at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, explains how Utah is using the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) to strengthen internal systems and improve how teams work together.
Utah is using program charters to reduce silos, build trust across programs, and increase efficiency across the agency. These charters track the different ways programs have utilized PHIG funding and create a standardized structure for program teams to coordinate their work, avoid duplication of effort across the agency, and make more strategic use of PHIG resources. This approach helps previously siloed programs collaborate more effectively while bringing finance, grants, evaluation, and leadership into the planning process early on.
The result is clearer decision-making, stronger coordination across multiple programs, and better positioning for long-term sustainability. By strengthening internal collaboration, Utah is better able to work with external partners, including local health departments, hospitals, and community partners across the state — ensuring that investments in the state’s public health system translate into meaningful impact for Utahns.
Video Transcript
The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
What changes are you making with PHIG support?
One thing that we’re really hoping to do is be able to strengthen our work within our systems. So, being able to collaborate and build trust within the programs is only going to help us work better and serve the people of Utah a lot better. These programs have existed prior to PHIG – including surveillance, data systems, and informatics. And one thing we’re wanting to do is just make sure that we are being efficient and really setting up the structure of our departments in a way that will lead to success in the long term. We’re building that collaboration and trust and being responsible with the money that we have in order to make the most impact and change among Utahns.
How are you using program charters to do this?
Our program charters are ways that we can track the different ways that our programs have utilized PHIG funding. Some of the programs that have been utilizing these program charters include the informatics team, our surveillance team, and the Utah Healthy Places Index project, which works with and looks at geographical data that we’ve got, as well as groups that work directly with our communities.
What are the benefits of program charters?
With our program charters, we’re wanting to foster collaboration between our teams. We’ve got several teams that work with different areas across the department. So we’re wanting to make sure that we’re capturing all of the work that we’re doing, and ensure that we’re not duplicating efforts when working with all these different programs. We’re really hoping to be able to come together and make sure that we’re efficient with the PHIG dollars that we’ve been given.
With that, we also want to make sure that all parties are involved, that everyone has a seat at the table, and we are being responsible with the money that we’ve got in the remaining time that we have. With this, it is a really good opportunity for us to be able to identify sustainability options, working with all of the different teams and making sure we have finance, our grant coordinator, our evaluation coordinator, as well as our PI to make sure that we are identifying all different areas that we can impact.
Why is PHIG so important to the community?
This work is honestly just so crucial because we work with a lot of our partners that go beyond just the state and these individual programs. We’re working with our local health departments, with different associations that impact and work with our hospitals, and our different communities across every part of Utah. This funding really is crucial to be able to help serve the communities and people of Utah and to be able to make a direct impact on the lives of the people who live here every day.