Just a few hours ago we learned that we closed the deal on the highly competitive portion of a new home visiting grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services. We're one of 9 states that'll be awarded the competitive portion of the grant. We'll receive $9.4M a year for four years for a total of more than $36M to implement a maternal, infant, [...]
Guest blog by: From the Division of Behavioral Health Services Let’s Celebrate Wellness this Week! You are invited to join Arizonans this FRIDAY, September 23 to participate in the Line Dance for Wellness and Recovery which will be held at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza (next to the Capitol Lawn in Phoenix) and at DeMeester [...]
We’ve had to make lots of difficult decisions in response to the ongoing funding shortfalls in our behavioral health system (as well as everywhere in state government). Many decisions (while painful in the short term) have been necessary to maintain long term system stability as Arizona continues to emerge from this unprecedented fiscal crisis. While [...]
Next month, the U of A College of Medicine Phoenix is going to host a lecture about marijuana and whether it is medicine. Dr. Sue Sisley, St. Joseph’s Hospital, will be giving the presentation at the Phoenix Theatre on October 11th at 5:30. In an earlier blog, Dr. Laura Nelson, ADHS’s Chief Medical Officer, and [...]
For years, you’ve heard that you should take your health care into your own hands. It may soon be easier because HHS wants you to be able to access your electronic health care records. One key argument to give people access is if they know what is there, they’ll ask better questions or even make notes [...]
Do you know someone who’s pregnant and needs help finding low-cost prenatal care? Someone looking for post-partum depression resources; help with breastfeeding; low-cost dental care; or the nearest WIC clinic? One great resource that can help is our Pregnancy & Breastfeeding Hotline. The Hotline (1-800-833-4642) is a statewide service funded by our Title V Maternal and [...]
Remember our responses to the 2009-2010 H1N1 Pandemic? One of the reasons why Arizona’s public health responses were so effective was that we had a well researched and tested pandemic readiness plan. But... public health readiness isn’t a static process, and once the pandemic was finished we set out to revise our plan with lessons learned. Over [...]
Many folks don’t know that our Licensing division undergoes a periodic audit (survey) to look at compliance to our Federal contract with the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS). This past week, 3 surveyors from the regional office of CMS came to review our Long Term Care and Medical Facilities areas. This survey centered on [...]
For decades, removing lead (Pb) from the environment has been a public health priority because residual contamination from decades of using products containing harmful lead continued to cause health problems. Fortunately, the public health interventions (removing Pb from gas, paint, and cans) worked and today 99.9% of Arizona kids have blood lead levels below the standard. As [...]
For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services. The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish [...]
