General – Page 33 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Continuing Medical Education for PTSD Treatment

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 8th, 2014|General|

A few weeks ago I issued a Director’s Decision that will authorize the use of marijuana (under the AZ Medical Marijuana Act) for patients undergoing treatment for PTSD. Medical marijuana certifications will be valid only for palliative care (not treatment). I delayed the implementation date until January 1 to allow time for certifying physicians, dispensary [...]

4

Streamlined “Delayed Birth Certificates” for Native Americans

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00October 6th, 2014|General|

The vast majority of Arizonans are born in hospitals. Shortly after delivery the electronic paperwork to establish an Arizona birth certificate gets input and processed. Even babies delivered at home attended by a midwife (about 1% of Arizona births) have their birth certificate information captured and processed. Many years ago, especially in Arizona’s Indian Country, [...]

Comments Off

Arizona Community Profiles Dashboard (Part II of IV)

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00October 1st, 2014|General|

A couple weeks ago I wrote about our new Community Profiles Dashboards. They’re a huge leap forward for public health professionals, city planners, non-profit organizations, medical providers and anyone interested in health data. The data are arranged on the Dashboards - in state, county, and Primary Care Areas - to provide several options to compare and explore [...]

Comments Off

National Latino Children’s Summit This Week in Phoenix

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00September 30th, 2014|General|

Child-serving organizations and community leaders will be meeting at the 2014 National Latino Children’s Summit on October 3rd in Phoenix. It’s called The State of Latino Children: Our Future – and it’ll focus on health, child safety, education and more. At the summit, Dyanne Herrera from our Office of Women and Children’s Health will provide [...]

Comments Off

Arizona Health Improvement Plan Broadcast Posted

By Will Humble|2014-09-29T07:02:36-07:00September 29th, 2014|General|

Our most recent AzHIP broadcast is posted to the Arizona State Health Assessment section (look under the Resources heading). A big thank you to everyone involved for their hard work. The next set of heavy lifting is putting together the working groups that will assemble gap analysis and the intervention ideas that will flesh out [...]

Comments Off

Trash Your Stash

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00September 26th, 2014|General|

Abuse of prescription drugs is a public health epidemic, but you can do your part in helping to curb access to prescription drugs with one simple step: get rid of your old and unused medications. This weekend is the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day held by the DEA and state and local partners. Removing [...]

1

Congrats to Emily

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00September 19th, 2014|General|

Congratulations to Emily Jenkins, the President and CEO of the Arizona Council of Human Service Providers who was recognized by the Arizona Capitol Times as the Leader of the Year in Public Policy for Healthcare this week. The award recognizes individuals and organizations for advancing public policy that positively impacts the lives of Arizonans. Categories [...]

Comments Off

New ASTHO Presidential Challenge: Healthy Aging

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:29-07:00September 17th, 2014|General|

I was at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Annual Meeting and Policy Summit most of last week. This year’s meeting was entitled Achieving Population Health in Evolving Systems. We shared best practices with each other about different ways states are approaching population health. We heard from the Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Boris D. [...]

1

Community Integrated Paramedicine Taking Shape in AZ

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:30-07:00September 16th, 2014|General|

Community Integrated Paramedicine programs are beginning to come together in two primary business models in Arizona. The first one has EMS (emergency medical services) agencies partnering with hospitals to reduce the frequency that patients are re-admitted to hospitals. In the second, EMS agencies are cultivating social service referrals to reduce the frequency that folks use emergency departments [...]

1

Enterovirus D68

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:30-07:00September 15th, 2014|General|

Arizona joined the states asking CDC for laboratory testing for Enterovirus D68 on Friday. We’ve had an increase in the number of children hospitalized and treated for upper respiratory illness. Enterovirus is in the family with the common cold and illness is usually limited to cold symptoms (stuffy or runny nose and cough). There seem [...]

Comments Off