Physical activity is absolutely essential to maintain good health… but you need checks in the system to make sure it’s done safely. That’s where the CDC’s Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports on-line training comes in. It’s is a free, online course available to coaches, parents, and others designed to help keep athletes safe from concussion. It features graphics, interactive exercises, and storytelling to help folks prevent concussions, to recognize them when they happen, and how to effectively respond.
Archive for the ‘Preparedness’ category
On-line Concussion Prevention Training
April 18th, 2013H7N9 Influenza
April 5th, 2013
This week the WHO announced that several people in eastern China are infected with a newly mutated bird influenza virus called H7N9. All are in critical condition and some have died… but importantly the cases don’t appear to be linked- meaning it’s probably not from human to human transmission (that’s good). The World Health Organization website has more detail including answers to some Frequently Asked Questions.
Global Influenza surveillance is a key public health tool… because early warning gives the global public health system an opportunity to squelch the outbreak before it breaks loose and causes a pandemic. It also gives us a head start on interventions and planning. BTW… in case you were wondering, the H stands for hemagglutinin and N stands for neuraminidase- which are proteins on the virus’s surface. The numbers stand for the kind of protein for each letter.
Korea Arizona Trauma Summit
April 1st, 2013
Today marks the beginning of an historic arrangement between Arizona and the Republic of Korea to improve Trauma care. The Korea Arizona Trauma Summit began this morning with Arizona’s Governor welcoming the National Assembly Representative of the Democratic Party of Korea and the Minister of Health and Welfare. The Korean group includes several trauma surgeons who will work side by side with Arizona counterparts to understand our trauma system and how to build a similar system in their country. ADHS’s Dr. Ben Bobrow worked with Bob Ramsey from the Ramsey Social Justice Foundation to craft the four-day workshop.
Flourishing in Uncertain Times
March 22nd, 2013
In last week’s update, I discussed the impact of federal sequestration to the main agencies who award us funding. We’re expecting a 5% reduction to our funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, a program that provides access to HIV/AIDS medications for patients with limited or no insurance coverage. We should be OK in this program even with the cut.
For the last couple of years we’ve been using a creative way to coordinate benefits and enroll clients in the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan to save money. We’ve also lowered our costs by filing rebate claims with manufacturers based on medication co-pay assistance. Increased funding from rebates allows us to continue to assist clients while preparing for the transition to the new health insurance marketplaces under Affordable Care Act. Big kudos go out to Rob Bailey for cementing the rebate strategy into practice and to Carla Chee, Lisa Fuentes, and the rest of the team for being proactive in planning and strategizing for the upcoming changes to service delivery under the Affordable Care Act.
Palo Verde Nuclear Exercise
March 6th, 2013
Today our preparedness team will participate in a drill (graded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to test our response to a simulated radiation release from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. The exercise simulates an event where people, food or drinking water could become contaminated in the very unlikely event that there were to be a release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.
Our focus includes the providing contamination control measures to protect the public from eating or drinking any contaminated food or water, guidance on the health effects of radiation exposure, distributing potassium iodide (there is a stockpile here in the state and nationally), coordinating with the CDC, and supporting for local public health agencies and hospitals. Here’s a link to our Emergency Response Plan including our Radiological Response Plan. The entire AZ response system is evaluated and graded every few years… and this year’s graded exercise is today.
Next Season’s Influenza Vaccine
March 5th, 2013
Just as our influenza season winds down (and it is), it’s time to plan for the next one. Every February the World Health Organization convenes a panel of experts to look at the most current data on the circulating flu strains from around the world and makes recommendations for the next season’s Northern Hemisphere flu vaccine. At this week’s meeting in Geneva, the group recommended changing a B component of the vaccine, but sticking with the A/H3N2 and A/H1N1 components for next year.
It may seem too early to be thinking about next year’s flu vaccine, but planning in February allows time for vaccine companies to grow the viruses and process the vaccine. The vaccine-making process still takes about 6 months… so it’s important to start as early as possible to ensure that vaccine is available for the start of the next flu season. Getting vaccinated against the flu every year is important, especially because the vaccine strains can change from year to year, as will happen for the 2013-2014 season.
Building a World-Class Trauma System
March 1st, 2013Four years ago- AZ didn’t really have a trauma system. We had 7 Level I (high-end) Trauma Centers… but that’s it. After 4 years and a full court press- we now have a decent trauma system that includes 31 trauma centers, (8 Level I, 4 Level III, and 19 Level IV (16 of the Level IVs are in rural Arizona). Over the past few years I’ve blogged about the progress we have made. Our next goal is to develop a world-class trauma system.
To help us get there we asked the American College of Surgeons to review today’s AZ Trauma System and make recommendations areas for improvement. So, what’s in the report? For one, traumatic injury in rural AZ still has room for improvement. For another, trauma care in the urban areas of Phoenix and Tucson is solid… and we want to make sure that we keep it that way and improve even further where we can. That means redoubling our focus on preventing injury from happening in the first place, continuing to focus on building out our rural trauma system, ensuring that trauma patients get high quality and timely care in the field, helping our Level III and IV trauma centers implement performance improvement practices in their facilities, and identifying 3 or 4 hospitals to become Level III trauma centers in rural AZ.
We don’t have the statutory authority to implement a designation moratorium for additional Level I Trauma Centers as the report recommends- but we do recognize the importance of having sufficient patient volume to support the necessary resources and provider expertise required by the highest level Trauma Centers. As a next step, we’ll be getting a group of experts to examine the data in our trauma registry in detail and come up with evidence-based criteria for determining need for the addition of future Trauma Center(s) in Arizona. These criteria may eventually serve as a substantive policy statement for us, guiding us as we review all future Level I Trauma Center applications.
We’ll also be engaging with our stakeholders (State Trauma Advisory Board, EMS Council, Medical Direction Commission and the four EMS Regions) in the coming months to develop priorities and a plan for our future trauma system development. We put together a set of frequently asked questions that shed some light on where we plan on going from here. I also talked about it for a few minutes on Wednesday night’s Horizon. I’m excited to think about what additional progress we continue to move the needle on trauma in Arizona- contributing to ”Health and Wellness for all Arizonans”.
Strategic National Stockpile Readiness
February 27th, 2013
The CDC’s “Strategic National Stockpile” is a large quantity of medicine and medical supplies that are available to states in case there’s a public health emergency (flu outbreak, asteroid, etc.) severe enough to cause local health supplies to run out. Once federal and local authorities agree that the stockpile is needed, meds and supplies are delivered to any state in time for them to be effective. Each state is responsible for receiving and distributing the stockpile assets to local communities fast.
Our Public Health Emergency Preparedness shop is responsible for the overall planning and execution in AZ. The Plan (which isn’t posted on-line for security reasons) provides a step by step approach to accessing and distributing pharmaceuticals, vaccines and other medical equipment and products stored by the Feds. Our Plan is evaluated yearly by the CDC. The review covers every aspect of our plan… including how we communicate with the public, work with our healthcare and Agency partners as well as how we plan to work with vulnerable populations should SNS assets be needed.
This year we got a score of 93% from the CDC… and our partner counties (Pinal and Maricopa) received similar scores- demonstrating that the plans work together effectively to serve the public when they need to be activated. We’ll be testing these plans during a full-scale exercise this week. Congratulations to our preparedness rock-stars Teresa Ehnert, Marcus Castle, Stacey Cain and the whole emergency preparedness team!
By the way… we received and executed stockpile assets (antiviral medications and other healthcare supplies) during the 2009 H1N1 Influenza pandemic. Our turnaround time from the minute we received the first shipment until everything was at its local destination was less than 36 hours- an impressive testament to our ability to plan and execute during a public health emergency.
ADHS to Become a HEART Safe Workplace
February 8th, 2013Our SHARE program recognizes HEART Safe workplaces around Arizona. The HEART Safe designation is awarded to schools, places of worship, non-profit agencies and businesses. It’s not easy to earn the status – it requires implementation of policies and procedures, training staff in how to use a defibrillator and they need to be registered, serviced and maintained.
We haven’t recognized ourselves as a HEART Safe workplace… but we’re going to change that. Coming soon, you’ll be hearing about training opportunities for you and your staff. The classes will help you become familiar with the equipment that is nearest your workspace. In order to train as many staff as possible without disrupting customer service and business operations, trainings will be offered at a variety of days and times throughout the next couple months. Agency Workforce Development and I will be in contact to create the rosters for the training in your areas.
Also… check out this great news story that highlights the success of our CPR dispatch training initiative. It’s just a few minutes and its inspiring.
AZ’s Traumatic Brain Injury Network Developing
February 6th, 2013
Traumatic brain injury is involved in about 1/3 of all injury-related deaths- it’s clearly a public health issue. That’s why we created Arizona’s Excellence in Pre-hospital Injury Care project- which is aimed at improving brain injury outcomes in AZ. The National Institutes of Health chose AZ as the only state to evaluate the national standards for pre-hospital emergency care of brain injury.
Since we got started about a year ago- we’ve recruited almost 100 fire departments and ground/air ambulance companies to get up to speed on the standards, covering more than 80% of the state’s population. Participants send treatment information to us and the UA College of Medicine for tracking and evaluation. A donation from the Ramsey Justice Foundation makes it possible for agencies to receive special breathing devices to assist in the treatment patients at no cost. Our initiative uses standards for treating traumatic brain injuries developed by the Brain Trauma Foundation.
This project will save countless lives by improving the survival rates of folks with traumatic brain injury by implementing pre-hospital guidelines… but it will also help folks recover more fully from brain trauma. Our study will help EMS providers throughout the state apply guidelines and measure their success. In a nutshell- AZ pre-hospital agencies will be implementing guidelines that have been studied across the country and measuring outcomes so we can improve our system and set a new standard for the country. For more info go to www.epic.arizona.edu.
