We’re committed to reducing substance abuse in Arizona and we’re consistently reminding the public to get rid of old medication to reduce the number of unintentional poisonings. With more Arizonans dying every year from misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers than car crashes- it’s more important than ever to educate health care providers… so we’re hosting a forum to discuss this increasingly urgent public health issue. About 30% of all prescriptions painkillers are written in emergency rooms… so we’ve set up the all-day event with partners from emergency rooms, physicians, nurses, hospital management and Indian Health Services Wednesday, July 18th at the Fiesta Resort Conference Center, 2100 South Priest Drive in Tempe to help increase awareness and identify solutions. Here’s a fact sheet with more info about this increasingly dangerous public health threat.
Posts Tagged ‘Indian Health Services’
Prescription Painkiller Forum
July 17th, 2012Who is John Doll?
November 22nd, 2011Almost 40 years ago, Dr. John M. Doll came to work at ADHS and left quite a legacy. His philosophy about researching and publishing data that can be used to make a difference lives on… even though he passed away. Every year, epidemiologists in Public Health Prevention submit the papers they have published to an internal committee to earn the annual John M Doll award.
This year, Dr. Melanie Taylor and Kerry Kenney received the award for their published article called: Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among American Indians in AZ. Their work highlighted the racial disparity from time of diagnosis to treatment – from which the Indian Health Services have created new interventions to help. One of the key things about public health is – research for research’s sake has limited value – when you can define an intervention to address the problem, research is priceless. There were 8 other publications submitted for the award – congratulations to all of you for the efforts you are making to enhance public health.
"Sink or Swim" Exercise
June 23rd, 2010Our preparedness team organized and executed a Functional Exercise on Tuesday last week to test Arizona’s hospital system for Interoperable Communications, Tracking of Bed Availability, Deploying Volunteer Health Professionals, Fatality Management, and Medical Evacuation/Shelter-In-Place capabilities. The exercise focused on hospital, local health, and state health Emergency Operations Center coordination.
The exercise scenario was called Sink or Swim, and tested the system’s response to simulated flooding from a severe tropical storm that moved up the Gulf of California to Arizona. Hospitals and clinic systems tested their emergency plans for communications outages, patient movement within facilities, and medical surge. Seventy two hospitals, 11 county health departments, 6 community health centers, Indian Health Services, and the ADHS participated in the exercise. In addition, the ADEM participated by activating the volunteer network. These exercises require a great deal of up-front work. Congratulations to our federally funded preparedness team for putting together the successful drill.
“Sink or Swim” Exercise
June 23rd, 2010Our preparedness team organized and executed a Functional Exercise on Tuesday last week to test Arizona’s hospital system for Interoperable Communications, Tracking of Bed Availability, Deploying Volunteer Health Professionals, Fatality Management, and Medical Evacuation/Shelter-In-Place capabilities. The exercise focused on hospital, local health, and state health Emergency Operations Center coordination.
The exercise scenario was called Sink or Swim, and tested the system’s response to simulated flooding from a severe tropical storm that moved up the Gulf of California to Arizona. Hospitals and clinic systems tested their emergency plans for communications outages, patient movement within facilities, and medical surge. Seventy two hospitals, 11 county health departments, 6 community health centers, Indian Health Services, and the ADHS participated in the exercise. In addition, the ADEM participated by activating the volunteer network. These exercises require a great deal of up-front work. Congratulations to our federally funded preparedness team for putting together the successful drill.
