Thanks for all your hard work in changing our culture of care at the Hospital. It’s been 2 years since we implemented new processes to change how we work with patients. We’ve revised roles and responsibilities for unit staff and campus support, trained all our staff in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention, which is an evidence-based, best [...]
As one of the largest departments in Arizona State Government, ADHS is joining in the salute to payroll professionals by participating in National Payroll Week. National Payroll Week recognizes professionals who support the American system by not only processing your wages, but also reporting your earnings and withholding employment taxes, which keep America running. Our payroll department [...]
Arizona is focused on making affordable fruits and vegetables easy-to-find in communities throughout the state. In Arizona, more than 40% of Farmers’ Markets accept Arizona Farmer's Market Nutrition Program coupons so WIC moms and seniors on the Commodity Supplemental Food Program can purchase fruits and vegetables at Farmers’ Markets, compared to just 21% of the [...]
In 2012, more than 1,000 Arizonans took their own lives, including more than 200 folks who had served in the military. Suicide influences populations differently. Nationally, the group committing suicide in the greatest numbers is elderly men. In Arizona, we also have a high rate among American Indians. Additionally, those with a serious mental illness [...]
We collect all kinds of surveillance about prevalence of disease, birth, causes of death, reasons for hospital visits, smoking rates and hundreds of other indicators to help us assess health indicators and design interventions to improve outcomes. For the first time ever, we now have a tool to explore this data and visualize it in [...]
For the first time, the US Preventive Services Task Force has released an e-book version of its Guide to Clinical Preventive Services which helps primary care clinicians and patients decide together what preventive services are right for a patient’s needs. The 2014 Guide includes all active Task Force evidence-based recommendations including 28 new and updated [...]
Our Vital Records team handles more than 600 mail-in requests for birth and death certificates each week. The average wait time for mail-in certificates had been nearly 4 weeks...too slow in anybody’s book. Last month we established a cross-functional quality improvement team to find and implement ways to reduce the turnaround time. We now have [...]
Several of our marketing efforts were honored at the National Conference on Health Communication in Atlanta. Our Intranet Re-design, Call 9-1-1 CPR and Cardiac Arrest video, Dairy Made Easy radio ads and Language Access List grabbed the attention of judges from Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The winners in the [...]
Just the idea of bed bugs makes folks squirm...which is understandable, but here in Arizona we have scarier bugs like Rhipicephalus sanguineus or Culex quinquefasciatus that actually transmit diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and West Nile virus. Bed bugs don’t transmit disease but they can cause skin reactions and psychosocial stress (e.g., anxiety and [...]
A few weeks ago I issued a Director’s Decision authorizing the use of marijuana for medical marijuana patients undergoing conventional treatment for PTSD. Beginning January 1 physician certifications will be valid for palliative care of PTSD symptoms as long as certifying physicians attest that the patient is currently undergoing some kind of conventional treatment for PTSD [...]
