Our own Madan Gopal from I.T. has been invited by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to participate in a national Roundtable discussion about the role and use of health IT to fill the needs of behavioral health providers, to integrate behavioral health record data into primary care, and on how ”Meaningful Use” could support this integration. Madan was asked to participate because Madan and our I.T. team has been at the national forefront in developing data exchange standards for coordination of care that will also support our behavioral health network in Arizona and reinforce our Recovery model.
Posts Tagged ‘IT’
Madan Jumps In Head-first
June 28th, 2012All Systems Go for Friday
December 10th, 2010Our preparation for the implementation of the AZ Medical Marijuana Act is on track. We’ve made a great deal of progress on all fronts over the last couple of weeks. The informal draft of the Administrative Code that we’ll release next Friday is really starting to gel. We’ve got the key elements hammered out and our Rules team will be doing the cross matching with the initiative as well as the internal rule indexing over the coming week. Once our Medical Officers team reviews the draft rule next Wednesday, I’ll check out their recommendations and we’ll put the finishing touches on the informal draft Rule.
IT has made tremendous progress on the “front end” of the database for the qualified patient and caregiver electronic application. They’ve started work on the “back end” and relational pieces. Our Webmaster and Marketing Committee helped polish the website for next Friday when you’ll see our re-vamped website including FAQs for the general public and Stakeholders. Out IT team has also finished development of the electronic tool that we’ll use to solicit electronic comments from the public from December 17 through January 7.
Vital Records and Environmental Health have begun developing workflow templates and resource needs assessments. Procurement and finance have done some background work on their pieces too. Communications has begun writing the media release for next Friday and is putting the finishing touches on the FAQ for the general public that we’ll post next Friday.
All in all, it’s been a very productive couple of weeks. Thanks for stepping up everyone!
Farmers' Market Locator
August 2nd, 2010We’ve got a groovy new Farmers’ Market Locator up on our WIC website. It help anybody in Arizona find the closest farmers market. Simply go to the application link and put in any address and city and push “Find Market”. The program will list all the markets including links that give you the time of year, dates and times that the market is open. It’ll also give you a map of the market’s location, provided on a printer friendly page. Thanks team IT & WIC for developing this useful and important new tool.
Farmers’ Market Locator
August 2nd, 2010We’ve got a groovy new Farmers’ Market Locator up on our WIC website. It help anybody in Arizona find the closest farmers market. Simply go to the application link and put in any address and city and push “Find Market”. The program will list all the markets including links that give you the time of year, dates and times that the market is open. It’ll also give you a map of the market’s location, provided on a printer friendly page. Thanks team IT & WIC for developing this useful and important new tool.
ADHS Status
July 21st, 2010We’ve got a lot to be proud of over the last year and an half. It’s been hard, I know because of all of the budget reductions and the lower staffing level. On the other hand, we’ve got an incredible mission and we’re doing a good job. I often tell people that we work in the most interesting agency in state government. Why? Because we touch the lives of Arizonans in dozens of different ways everyday. We:
- Make sure that Arizonans are healthy and protected from infectious diseases like the flu and foodborne illnesses- and prevent diseases in the first place through our Vaccine for Children Program
- Provide families with young kids access to nutritious blend of foods www.azwic.gov.
- Make sure that the kids at Child Care facilities are safe and sound and that they get some exercise thanks to our Empower Pack program.
- Make sure that Arizona’s Nursing Homes (Long-term Care), Assisted Living Facilities, Medical Facilities, Behavioral Health Providers treat people right and provide a safe environment. We’ve also sharpened our surveys to focus on the most important elements of care, and allowing folks to review the latest scores using our Facility Search tool. When we find Nursing Homes (Long-term Care) and Assisted Living Facilities that were jeopardizing the health of their residents- we make sure they make immediate corrections so that the residents are safe.
- Help save lives by doing things like developing Cardiac Arrest Centers and Primary Stroke
Centers across the state that are dramatically improving outcomes for folks that have a cardiac arrest or a stroke and are leading the national shift to continuous chest compression CPR from the old compression/breathing method .
- Are building a new Trauma System from the ground up- which saves lives every day.
- Are leading the state’s anti tobacco efforts like the prevention activities in our youth tobacco campaign (called Venomocity) and helping thousands of Arizonan’s Kick the Habit through our www.ashline.com services.
- Are improving the performance of the state’s mental health system by giving choice and voice to folks with mental health and substance abuse needs- improving their ability to better participate in their path to Recovery from Mental illnesses. Over this past year, we have developed the new Nine Adult Guiding Principles to compliment our Children’s 12 Principles. We developed an RFP, went out for bid, and issued awards for all Geographic Service Areas outside of Maricopa County. We also planned for and implemented the most severe budget reductions in the behavioral health system in Arizona’s history.
- Make a difference in hundreds of peoples lives at the Arizona State Hospital- by helping them in their road to recovery by treating them with dignity, care and respect.
- Run one of the state’s most well respected public health laboratories- providing the backbone for Arizona’s public health system. For example, we find hundreds of kids with metabolic disorders and hearing and helped their doctors conduct interventions to help them avoid serious complications from their condition through our newborn screening program.
- Administer the Office of Children with Special Healthcare Needs (OCSHCN) program, which includes the Children’s Rehabilitative Services (CRS) program. CRS provides family-centered medical treatment, rehabilitation, and related support services for children under age 21 with qualifying chronic and disabling conditions such as congenital heart disease, neuromuscular conditions, spina bifida, cleft lip, cerebral palsy, and many others.
- Test 1000s of biological samples for all kinds of viruses and bacteria including H1N1, tuberculosis, West Nile virus, rabies, and literally dozens of other diseases so that counties and doctors can help slow the spread of disease and help people get better in our Public Health Microbiology program.
- Helped thousands of folks at some of the most intense parts of their lives get critical documents in an efficient way through our Vital Records, Health Data & Evaluation programs.
- Ensure that hundreds of clinical and environmental laboratories across the state are doing things right and providing good results through our Laboratory Licensure & Certification program.
- Test 1000s of water samples for Environmental & Analytical Chemistry and bacteria so that counties and cities can protect their residents.
And that’s just a fraction of the incredibly interesting and important things that we do. Do you have any doubt now that this is the most fascinating place to work in state government?
We’re successful at all of these things because of your commitment to the folks of Arizona and to each other. It takes a wide range of help from everyone including our IT, Human Resources, Rules, Procurement, Auditing, Financial Services and other Operations Teams to make these things happen.
Thank you all for rowing in the same direction. I really appreciate your can-do attitude. Thanks… and make sure that you take the time to thank the folks around you from operations that make this place tick.
