Newborn Screening consists of critical laboratory and bedside tests done on newborns to see if they have certain inherited diseases. Early detection for these specific diseases is critical for the babies, doctors and parents, because delays in treatment can result in irreversible developmental delays, sickness and even death. With the passage of HB 2491 last [...]
The vast majority of Arizonans are born in hospitals. Shortly after delivery the electronic paperwork to establish an Arizona birth certificate gets input and processed. Even babies delivered at home attended by a midwife (about 1% of Arizona births) have their birth certificate information captured and processed. Many years ago, especially in Arizona’s Indian Country, [...]
This week there’s been some news about kids in Colorado hospitalized with neurologic illness. At this time, 10 of the kids have been hospitalized with weakness in their limbs, but no cause has been identified. The neurologic illness could be caused by enteroviorus D68 (4 of the kids have tested positive), but we don’t yet know for [...]
This week the CDC confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the US. The person had traveled from Liberia to Dallas. The patient didn’t have symptoms when he left Liberia, but developed them 5 days after arriving in Dallas on September 20 - meaning that folks on the plane have no risk of developing Ebola [...]
A couple weeks ago I wrote about our new Community Profiles Dashboards. They’re a huge leap forward for public health professionals, city planners, non-profit organizations, medical providers and anyone interested in health data. The data are arranged on the Dashboards - in state, county, and Primary Care Areas - to provide several options to compare and explore [...]
