General – Page 50 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Response to Yarnell Hill Fire and Firefighter Deaths

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:20-07:00July 1st, 2013|Behavioral Health, General, Licensing, Preparedness|

We are mourning the tragic deaths of 19 firefighters at the Yarnell Hill Fire. We're working through the Northern Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authority to help the firefighters and community there to deal with the loss of life and the speedy evacuation in front of the fire. The loss of most of the Granite Mountain Hot Shot team [...]

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Internet Services Back Online

By Will Humble|2013-06-30T09:32:14-07:00June 30th, 2013|General|

The heat played havoc with the computer system that services us this weekend. While doing some routine maintenance on Saturday morning, the heat overwhelmed the generators that were keeping the servers running. So for about 8 hours, no one could access our homepage nor any of the services we offer like azcarecheck, assisted living renewals, [...]

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What’s Meaningful Use, Anyway?

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:21-07:00June 26th, 2013|General|

You’ve probably heard the words “meaningful use” thrown around… but what is it? Basically, it’s using electronic health record technology to: 1) Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities; 2) Engage patients and family; 3) Improve care coordination, and population and public health; and 4) Maintain privacy and security of patient health information. Using [...]

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Budget Squared Away

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:21-07:00June 20th, 2013|Behavioral Health, General|

As you’ve probably seen, the Legislature went into a special session and worked some long hours to pass a FY 2014 budget. While we’re still analyzing everything, here are some key provisions of the budget bill as it was sent to the Governor. Medicaid (AHCCCS) will be restored and expanded. This will be a big [...]

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Border Bi-national Public Health

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:22-07:00June 18th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, General|

You can think of the border public health advocacy network as a bi-national matrix of public health partners that collaborate to improve conditions along the US-Mexico border. The network includes national organizations like the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission along with state based partnerships like the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the annual Border Governor’s Conference. As part of my job [...]

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Arizona Mexico Commission Goes Well

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:22-07:00June 15th, 2013|General, Prevention|

The annual plenary session of the Arizona-Mexico Commission wrapped up last night with some important health events. We signed a Cooperative Agreement with the Secreteria de Salud Publica in Sonora to educate people on both sides of the border about the importance of buckling up children and infants. In the last Child Fatality Review report [...]

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Our “Interim Compensation Strategy”

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:22-07:00June 14th, 2013|General|

One of the elements of last year’s state personnel reform is the ability to reward staff who do great work and have tangible results to prove it. Our first opportunity to take advantage of the incentives are coming this month with something called our “interim compensation strategies”. It’s basically the first stop in the road for applying incentives [...]

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Employee Wellness Standards Locked In

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:22-07:00June 11th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, General|

The Fed’s issued their final regulations for worksite wellness programs under the Affordable Care Act this week. The final rules are designed to incentivize workplaces to develop and execute health promotion programs. The goal is to improve health and wellness among workers and to limit growth of health care costs moving forward. The regulations outline [...]

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What’s Our Most Popular Report?

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:23-07:00June 7th, 2013|General|

It's called the 2011 Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report... and last year's report got hit upon 2,000,000 times. It gives our most granular public health information of the year including refined health statistics on pregnancies, births, reportable diseases, deaths, inpatient hospitalizations, emergency room visits, marriages, divorces and population for Arizona. The report provides critical data for health policy formulation, [...]

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Clinician Website Up and Running

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:23-07:00June 4th, 2013|General|

I’m happy to announce that we rolled out our state-of-the-art Arizona Clinician Website this week. The site provides a one-stop-shop for Arizona clinicians. The new Clinician Website is designed specifically for clinicians, so they can go to one website and access information directly from the site. With our old system, if a physician wanted to [...]

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