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

New Draft Medical Marijuana Regulations Out for Public Comment

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 15th, 2014|General|

For the last few months we’ve been reviewing our medical marijuana rules to make changes to them in response to an Arizona Superior Court judge’s decision. In addition to the changes needed to comply with the Court’s ruling, also proposing other changes to the medical marijuana rules that affect qualifying patients, caregivers, and dispensaries that [...]

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Help Your Health & Wallet

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 9th, 2014|General|

If you’re a “benefits eligible” state employee, you now have a new opportunity to improve your health and your wallet. This week Benefit Options Wellness launched a new health initiative called the Health Impact Program (HIP). It’s a point-based incentive program that encourages participation in a variety of wellness activities, while logging progress toward a [...]

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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 [...]

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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, [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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. [...]

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