Scheduled Maintenance
Due to scheduled maintenance this website will be unavailable Sunday, March 11 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.
Enjoy AZ’s 100th B-day
Please take some time to enjoy Arizona’s 100th birthday celebration this week. The Arizona Centennial Commission held Arizona Best Fest this past Saturday and Sunday. There’ll also be a host of events going on tomorro (AZ’s actual 100th Birthday) in the Capitol mall area- especially the area between the House and Senate buildings just across [...]
Arizona Mexico Commission Progress
I’m writing this from my hotel room in Rocky Point- after a long day (and night) of the inter Plenary Session. The 2 day conference started Thursday and goes through tonight. We meet twice a year- it’s basically an opportunity for us to form partnerships across the border and to develop regional approaches to things like [...]
Recovery Through Whole Health RFI
We’ll be having a “Request For Information” session regarding our “ Recovery Through Whole Health, the Regional Behavioral Health Authority with Health Homes” project (a.k.a. the upcoming Request for Proposal for behavioral health services in Maricopa County) on March 21 from 1- 5 pm at the Radisson City Center at 3600 N. 2nd Ave. in Phoenix. We’ll [...]
Neglected Global Tropical Disease Initiative
Last week marked an important milestone toward better controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases by 2020. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, 13 pharmaceutical companies, the U.S., U.K. and U.A.E. governments and other global health organizations announced a new, coordinated push to defeat diseases like Dengue, rabies, blinding trachoma, Buruli ulcer, endemic treponematoses (yaws), leprosy (Hansen disease), Chagas [...]
Public Health Preparedness Milestone
Back in 2008 we set the ambitious goal of becoming a “Public Health Ready” state- and we’ve worked hard over the last 3 years or so to accomplish our goal. We made it last month- and Arizona became one of only a couple of states to have all county health departments recognized by Project Public [...]
Dispensary Application Timeline Forecast
As you know from earlier blog posts a judge ruled in a state case that had challenged our dispensary applicant selection criteria. The judge’s decision basically struck down several of the selection criteria we had been planning to use to for competitive areas of the state (areas where there will be more than 1 applicant [...]
AZ Smallpox Outbreak
Smallpox broke out in southeast Arizona almost exactly 100 years ago last week (co-incident with the Statehood activities). The first cases were in Tucson and Douglas with a few dozen cases and several deaths… and there were a few additional cases in Nogales and Globe. Of course, all the cases were among folks that hadn’t been vaccinated. [...]
EMS Overdrive
This month has been a doozy for our Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and Trauma System team. This week we finished the 2nd of 2 high-profile and important decisions. A couple of weeks ago I made a decision to let Yuma City take over part of the ambulance response in that town. I thought the city [...]
Referee a Safe Super Bowl Party
When it comes to the Super Bowl, defense matters. When it comes to planning a Super Bowl XLV party, good defense against foodborne illness matters even more. Food Safety Playbook Fans should follow the food safety play book at the Super Bowl parties that they host. Large gatherings can increase the chance of becoming ill, [...]