Through our Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant, folks are given a brief assessment which inquires as to individual’s substance use in primary care and emergency room settings. People who screen positive (or who are self-referred) are able to access an array of treatment services. In general, services can be grouped into [...]
By now, it’s likely you know someone who’s gotten the flu this year. Last week, Arizona joined the ranks of 46 other states that are having “widespread” influenza activity. We’ve had 2,316 cases reported so far this season, with 761 of those being reported in the last week. That’s 130% more cases than this time [...]
We published our end-of-year annual medical marijuana report this week. Dispensary marijuana sales were three times higher than in 2013. Dispensaries sold over 9 metric tons (about 10 US tons) of marijuana in 2014 for an estimated gross revenue of about $110M. There were 1,433,808 individual sales in ‘14 (among the 55,000 patients), with an [...]
A 2 year-old boy from Guinea appears to be what we call in our business the “Index Case” for the West African Ebola epidemic. In epidemiology, an Index Case is the first documented case of an illness that spreads to others. The 2 year-old appears to have been infected by playing in a hollow tree [...]
Arizona’s Paramedic training programs are taught by a combination of colleges, private training centers, and fire departments. A typical Paramedic course is over 1,000 hours of class room, hospital and ambulance time covering anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, terminology, and hours and hours of assessment and proficiency tests on a multitude of skills. To become certified [...]
Each year the American Heart Association recognizes employers who go above and beyond when it comes to their employees’ health...and we were recognized as a Gold Fit-Friendly Worksite for 2014. We’re among an elite group of nationally-recognized awardees for our efforts to promote a healthy workplace. As a Gold Level award recipient, we’ve been recognized for [...]
Every broadcast TV station and most radio outlets across Arizona will air simultaneously a 30-minute commercial-free investigative report produced by ASU student journalists on the growing perils of heroin and opioid use on Tuesday, January 13, at 6:30 pm. You may remember a similar broadcast a few years ago about methamphetamine use. That broadcast did [...]
We’ve had a great run together since I accepted the Interim ADHS Director position 6 years ago. I’m grateful to all of you for trusting me in this important position and for working together for the benefit of the folks of Arizona. We’ve made tremendous progress toward our Vision of Health and Wellness for all [...]
To better understand the health status of Arizona's population, we partnered with the county health departments to conduct Community Health Assessments in 2014. We used the Community Health Assessments to develop a comprehensive State Health Assessment, which became basis for putting together an Arizona Health Improvement Plan (AzHIP). We began developing the AzHIP in late [...]
When a reporter from Wisconsin wrote a story about newborn screening turn-around times around the country in December of 2013, we found out that we had room for improvement when it comes to the time it takes newborn metabolic screening samples to get from Arizona hospitals to our Lab. Basically, it was taking too long [...]
