Last week a Superior Court Judge denied a motion to Stay the transition of the Maricopa County behavioral health services contract from Magellan to Mercy Maricopa on April 1. With this ruling it looks like everything is happening according to schedule. Magellan still has the opportunity to appeal the decision and exercise due process in the matter… [...]
Disease outbreaks can come from anywhere. In Arizona we’ve had illness from contaminated pomegranate seeds from the Middle East, measles from Switzerland, salmonellosis from African dwarf frogs and cholera from Peru. More recently a Canadian traveler died of H5N1 after she returned home from a long trip to China. An exotic disease from another country is only [...]
Access to primary care providers in rural AZ is a problem. Our National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program and the State Loan Repayment Program are part of the solution- recruiting primary care workforce resources in those areas. Still, there’s not enough providers in rural Arizona- and 150 rural communities in Arizona need access to primary [...]
A report out by the CDC this week found that people between 18 and 64 years old make up 61% of all flu-related hospitalizations so far this season in the US. In normal years only about 35% of flu hospitalizations are from this age group. H1N1 (the flu strain we saw circulating in the 2009 flu pandemic) is still the [...]
Patients and Staff at the Arizona State Hospital are working with the Phoenix Rescue Mission again this year to create Blessing Bags. They're large gallon sized Ziploc bags filled with basic necessities which will be handed out by the Phoenix Rescue Mission to the homeless. But they need some donations to get going. The Hospital team [...]
Sugar has been in the news with a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine that took a look at sugar intake and deaths from heart disease. The study used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and included surveys from 1988 through 2010. Some of the findings were things we already know, like most [...]
Around the Country, State Emergency Medical Services offices are looking for ways to help returning Veterans with medical experience find employment in the EMS industry. We’ll be making it a priority in 2014 to engage more Veterans with EMS experience to use their skills in Arizona’s progressive EMS and Trauma System. We have a couple [...]
Today we published Arizona’s first ever comprehensive State Health Assessment. The objective of the State Health Assessment is to give Arizona’s public health and health care systems a clear tool to help drive future decision-making and resource allocation as we collectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes across Arizona. The [...]
Last week we had a visit from CMS (Medicare) to check on our plan of correction from a Survey that was conducted last fall at the Civil Units. Although we won’t get a final report for a while… we do know that Team ASH did a great job during the survey- ensuring that the surveyors [...]
On previous Blogs I’ve shared information about Community Integrated Paramedicine. One of the most promising opportunities for Community Paramedicine is in working with hospitals to prevent readmission of patients with diseases like diabetes, asthma or congestive heart failure. It’s also a great opportunity for EMS providers to provide some coaching on other prevention initiatives including [...]
