was held at ASU July 27th -29th. This is the first time that we have brought together all of the fields of infectious disease including HIV, TB, STDs, Vector-borne Disease, Foodborne Disease and Invasive Bacterial Infections in a unified training. The training: Had almost 300 attendees from across the state, including physicians, nurses, sanitarians, local health [...]
Last month we approved the renewal of the fifth and final year of the Magellan behavioral health contract in Maricopa County. Before making the decision to grant the 5th year of the contract, our team assessed the progress that has been made in various areas, including access to and coordination of care; grievance and appeal [...]
Last October a person that was awaiting a civil commitment hearing escaped from our Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center ACPTC, which provides for the civil commitment of people who have a mental disorder that predisposes them to commit sexual acts that pose a danger to the health and safety of others. Fortunately the person that [...]
Check this out. Here’s a 3 minute You Tube Video clip that St. Mary's Key Club did on seat belt & texting safety. St. Mary's High School has participated in ADHS' Battle of the Belt program for 3 years now. This will be played during morning announcements, etc. in High Schools around the state.
Our Smoke Free Arizona and ITS teams polished off their electronic Complaint Reporting System this week. Our county partners can use the new tool to manage complaints electronically. The reports can be downloaded in PDF format or Excel. This is a great example of a solid team effort with participation from both teams including Harmony Duport, [...]
The FDA approved this year’s (2010-2011) flu vaccine for the US. This year's shot will protect folks from 3 strains of influenza including the pandemic strain from last year. The technical terms for the strains in this year’s shot are the “A/California/7/09 (H1N1)-like virus (i.e. pandemic virus”; the “A/Perth /16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus”; and the “B/Brisbane/60/2008-like [...]
Our laboratory expects to get our first seafood samples from the Gulf next week. The goal is find out whether commercial seafood has been contaminated by the oil spill and if so, to determine whether the levels pose a health risk. Our team will specialize in testing for Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The FDA and NOAA [...]
Arizona enjoys a relatively high breastfeeding rate compared to the rest of the country- with 78% of all newborns being breastfed. But we can always do better, that’s why we’re joining the rest of the world in celebrating World Breastfeeding Week, which promotes the health and well-being of mothers, babies and families throughout the world. [...]
Some of the folks that we serve in our diverse mission have complicated medical conditions and may have had trouble in the past finding health insurance because of a pre-existing health problem. The new federal healthcare reform law may be able to help some of these folks under the newly created “Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP)”… [...]
The first part of the fiscal year (July) is always a busy time for our budget folks. The new fiscal year requires a lot of data entry, cross-checks, analysis and review. It was a busy time of year even when we had several people in the budget office. This year we got the job done [...]
