The Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council finished it’s website makeover this week at www.azdes.gov/ADDPC. One of our goals for the last couple of years has been to become a more efficient hub of information for folks with disabilities, their families and providers. The site uses something called an Ektron operating platform which is designed for ease of use, meaning it’s easy to maintain. Several new pages have been added, including Events, Newsroom, Grants, and Legislation. I hope you find the new site to be helpful and of value to our consumers.
Posts Tagged ‘providers’
New AZ Developmental Disabilities Planning Council Website
July 12th, 2012Public Health Budget
May 9th, 2012 The Governor signed the budget this week – here’s a look at how some of it affects public health:
Behavioral Health Services for folks that don’t Qualify for Medicaid
The budget that was just signed includes about $39M in new funding for services for folks with a serious mental illness that don’t qualify for Medicaid. With it, we’ll be able to provide some services like supported employment and housing, peer and family support, living skills training, and health promotion to help folks along their Recovery journey. We’ll also be expanding the list of medications for the folks with a serious mental illness so it matches the list for folks that qualify for Medicaid. Our behavioral health team has already begun working closely with the RBHAs, providers, and members/families to plan for the most effective use of this funding.
Newborn Screening
Our newborn screening program has been running in the red for the last couple of years- despite the fact that we’ve squeezed just about every efficiency out of the program and are collecting more than 95% of our service fees. The current screening fee is $30 for the 1st (hospital) screen and $40 for the 2nd (which happens in the pediatric office a couple of weeks after birth). These fees haven’t been raised in several years- meanwhile the instruments and reagents we use have become increasingly expensive. We’ve been supplementing the program with Title V funds that really should be used for other more effective purposes. The budget that was just signed allows us to set new fees for the 2nd screen in Rule… and we’ll be starting that process shortly.
County Contribution toward Hospital Patients and Residents
The “Budget Reconciliation Bill” or BRBs included specific instructions regarding how much counties are obligated to pay (50%) for the patients and residents at the Hospital and ACPTC (the sexually violent person’s unit).
Hospital Operating Fund
Despite all our efforts to reduce overtime, cut shift overlap, streamline services and other efficiency measures- our hospital operating fund was headed for big trouble next fiscal year- partly because the Hospital Fund (which had provided funds to operate the Hospital) went dry. The state budget that was just signed rescued us from needing to cut our staffing ratio’s to below Licensing standards (which would have put us in jeopardy of losing Medicare and Medicaid funds). Whew.
The Health Care/Public Health Continuum
November 29th, 2011In the world of health care- the clinician works with patients individually. They examine various indicators of health for their patient including direct observations and laboratory or other diagnostic tests and implement interventions to help their patient improve their health. Providers also encourage their patients to live healthy lifestyles and take safety precautions- and help patients with preventative care by providing vaccinations and the like. Over time, the health care provider follows the patient and measures how they’re doing with patient centered criteria.
In the world of public health, the practitioner works with communities… in other words the community is the patient. Public health folks look at various outcome indicators to determine the health of the community so they can take action and implement interventions at the wholesale level to improve population health. In other words- public health uses community indicators like infant mortality, communicable disease rates, obesity and diabetes to assess the patient (the community). Of course, public health relies on health care providers in the health care world to carry out public health objectives and interventions.
So you can see that there is a strong interface between health care and public health- but the distinction is that in health care the patient is the patient while in public health the community is the patient- the interventions are community based, and community indicators are the primary assessment tool. By the way, studies and reports suggest that behavior accounts for roughly 50% of health outcomes, genetics about 20%, the environmental about 20%, with medical care about 10%… 96% of our national health expenditures are focused on medical care with about 4% dedicated to prevention.
