The effectiveness of a State’s EMS and Pre-Hospital & Trauma System makes the difference when it comes to saving lives (and quality of life) from injuries. Injuries are the leading cause of death for Arizonans from age 1 to 44- so you can see how important it is for states to have an effective EMS & [...]
We met the review deadline for our agency-level policies and procedures related to Personnel Reform thanks to the full court press from our Operations team. This was no small task… and it took an entire village to complete! We met weekly throughout the process, but during several phases smaller groups met more frequently, especially as we [...]
Join me and challenge yourself this holiday season. Give yourselves the most important holiday gift, the gift of health. Visit North Carolina’s Eat Smart, Move More website to get started today! Not only will you be provided with easy and fun ways to stay on top of the seasons’ calories, but you can also join the Eat [...]
It is hard to believe we’re in the 3rd year of our successful Empower Program. As a refresher for those of you that aren’t familiar with Empower, it’s a program that focuses on increasing healthy eating and active living, along with helping to provide smoke-free environments, in licensed child care facilities… reaching over 200,000 children [...]
Until last week, influenza vaccine makers were limited to producing flu vaccines using a 40-year-old technology that depends on using fertilized chicken eggs to grow virus strains- meaning that it takes several months to make an influenza vaccine. Makers needed to organize sterile egg supplies and incubate the virus in them before the vaccine could [...]
Last legislative session the Governor signed HB 2036- which amends state law regarding abortions. Some parts of the law are pending legal challenges, but the parts requiring us to develop a website were unaffected- and our new informed consent site just went up. The website lists agencies and services that are available to assist women throughout [...]
The US Dept. of Health & Human Services released 3 new Affordable Care Act proposed regulations this week… including: 1) A proposed Rule regarding coverage requirements for pre-existing or chronic conditions; 2) A proposed Rule outlining policies and standards for coverage of essential health benefits; and 3) A proposed Rule implementing and expanding employment-based wellness [...]
This morning St. Mary’s Food Bank picked up 2 ½ tons of canned food to help those in need… courtesy of our Agency food drive. We set a goal of bringing in 4,000 pounds and we made it. When you combine the cans and cash, it equals more than 5,000 pounds of food. Good work to [...]
Our Arizona State Hospital (ASH) and the U of A share a birthday. Both were established by the 13th Territorial Legislature in 1885. The City of Tucson had wanted ASH (it came with a $100K appropriation) but their delegation got to Prescott (the Territorial Capitol) late because the Salt was flooded… and Tucson ended up [...]
In public health, we don’t gather data just for the sake of gathering data. Our goal is use that data to see what kind of issues there are, look for programs that are proven to reduce bad outcomes and help the communities implement them. One key area we watch is Maternal and Child Health because making changes [...]
